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Summary: GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 0, NO. 0, PAGES 0-0, M 0, 2001
Soil moisture in a regional climate model:
simulation and projection
Zaitao Pan, Raymond W. Arritt, William J. Gutowski, Jr.
and Eugene S. Takle
Iowa State University, Ames
Abstract. Regional climate simulations driven by three
sets of initial and lateral boundary conditions analyzed
observations, GCM control climate, and GCM enhanced
greenhouse-gas scenario climate are used to assess model
accuracy in predicting soil moisture and to examine changes
in soil moisture in the scenario climate. Simulated soil mois-
ture does not show noticeable drift during the 10-year sim-
ulations. Observed and simulated soil moisture for Illinois
and Iowa correspond reasonably well for the top 10 cm soil
layer but a consistent low bias is present in the top 1 m.
Growing season depletion of soil water is simulated well but
recharge after growing season is slower than observed, at
least in part due to underprediction of precipitation in au-
tumn. This suggests that improvements in simulating soil
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