How well do terrestrial biosphere models simulate coarse-scale runoff in the contiguous United States?
Abstract
Significant changes in the water cycle are expected under current global environmental change. Robust assessment of present-day water cycle dynamics at continental to global scales is confounded by shortcomings in the observed record. Modeled assessments also yield conflicting results which are linked to differences in model structure and simulation protocol. Here we compare simulated gridded (1 spatial resolution) runoff from six terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs), seven reanalysis products, and one gridded surface station product in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from 2001 to 2005. We evaluate the consistency of these 14 estimates with stream gauge data, both as depleted flow and corrected for net withdrawals (2005 only), at the CONUS and water resource region scale, as well as examining similarity across TBMs and reanalysis products at the grid cell scale. Mean runoff across all simulated products and regions varies widely (range: 71 to 356 mm yr(-1)) relative to observed continental-scale runoff (209 or 280 mm yr(-1) when corrected for net withdrawals). Across all 14 products 8 exhibit Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency values in excess of 0.8 and three are within 10% of the observed value. Region-level mismatch exhibits a weak pattern of overestimation in western and underestimation in eastern regions although twomore »
- Authors:
-
- Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, Portland, OR (United States). Pacific Northwest Research Station
- Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States)
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, Knoxville, TN (United States). Southern Research Station
- Auburn Univ., AL (United States)
- Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1335319
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1249857
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; FG02-06ER64317; MTU050516Z14
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Ecological Modelling
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 303; Journal ID: ISSN 0304-3800
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Terrestrial biosphere models; Runoff; Intercomparison; North American Carbon Program; Regional; AMERICAN REGIONAL REANALYSIS; GLOBAL VEGETATION MODEL; FRESH-WATER DISCHARGE; INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY; CIRCULATION MODEL; BALANCE; PRECIPITATION; CLIMATE; OCEAN
Citation Formats
Schwalm, C., Huntzinger, Deborah N., Cook, Robert B., Wei, Yaxing, Baker, I. T., Neilson, R. P., Poulter, B., Caldwell, Peter, Sun, G., Tian, H. Q., and Zeng, N. How well do terrestrial biosphere models simulate coarse-scale runoff in the contiguous United States?. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.02.006.
Schwalm, C., Huntzinger, Deborah N., Cook, Robert B., Wei, Yaxing, Baker, I. T., Neilson, R. P., Poulter, B., Caldwell, Peter, Sun, G., Tian, H. Q., & Zeng, N. How well do terrestrial biosphere models simulate coarse-scale runoff in the contiguous United States?. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.02.006
Schwalm, C., Huntzinger, Deborah N., Cook, Robert B., Wei, Yaxing, Baker, I. T., Neilson, R. P., Poulter, B., Caldwell, Peter, Sun, G., Tian, H. Q., and Zeng, N. Wed .
"How well do terrestrial biosphere models simulate coarse-scale runoff in the contiguous United States?". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.02.006. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1335319.
@article{osti_1335319,
title = {How well do terrestrial biosphere models simulate coarse-scale runoff in the contiguous United States?},
author = {Schwalm, C. and Huntzinger, Deborah N. and Cook, Robert B. and Wei, Yaxing and Baker, I. T. and Neilson, R. P. and Poulter, B. and Caldwell, Peter and Sun, G. and Tian, H. Q. and Zeng, N.},
abstractNote = {Significant changes in the water cycle are expected under current global environmental change. Robust assessment of present-day water cycle dynamics at continental to global scales is confounded by shortcomings in the observed record. Modeled assessments also yield conflicting results which are linked to differences in model structure and simulation protocol. Here we compare simulated gridded (1 spatial resolution) runoff from six terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs), seven reanalysis products, and one gridded surface station product in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from 2001 to 2005. We evaluate the consistency of these 14 estimates with stream gauge data, both as depleted flow and corrected for net withdrawals (2005 only), at the CONUS and water resource region scale, as well as examining similarity across TBMs and reanalysis products at the grid cell scale. Mean runoff across all simulated products and regions varies widely (range: 71 to 356 mm yr(-1)) relative to observed continental-scale runoff (209 or 280 mm yr(-1) when corrected for net withdrawals). Across all 14 products 8 exhibit Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency values in excess of 0.8 and three are within 10% of the observed value. Region-level mismatch exhibits a weak pattern of overestimation in western and underestimation in eastern regions although two products are systematically biased across all regions and largely scales with water use. Although gridded composite TBM and reanalysis runoff show some regional similarities, individual product values are highly variable. At the coarse scales used here we find that progress in better constraining simulated runoff requires standardized forcing data and the explicit incorporation of human effects (e.g., water withdrawals by source, fire, and land use change). (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.},
doi = {10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.02.006},
journal = {Ecological Modelling},
number = ,
volume = 303,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Mar 11 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Wed Mar 11 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
Trends in Global and Basin-Scale Runoff over the Late Twentieth Century: Methodological Issues and Sources of Uncertainty
journal, June 2011
- Alkama, R.; Decharme, B.; Douville, H.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 24, Issue 12
Constraints on future changes in climate and the hydrologic cycle
journal, September 2002
- Allen, Myles R.; Ingram, William J.
- Nature, Vol. 419, Issue 6903
North American gross primary productivity: regional characterization and interannual variability
journal, January 2010
- Baker, Ian; Denning, Scott; Stöckli, Reto
- Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, Vol. 62, Issue 5
Effects of Precipitation Uncertainty on Discharge Calculations for Main River Basins
journal, August 2009
- Biemans, H.; Hutjes, R. W. A.; Kabat, P.
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 10, Issue 4
Impacts of impervious cover, water withdrawals, and climate change on river flows in the conterminous US
journal, January 2012
- Caldwell, P. V.; Sun, G.; McNulty, S. G.
- Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 16, Issue 8
Effects of fire on properties of forest soils: a review
journal, February 2005
- Certini, Giacomo
- Oecologia, Vol. 143, Issue 1
Global Land Precipitation: A 50-yr Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations
journal, June 2002
- Chen, Mingyue; Xie, Pingping; Janowiak, John E.
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 3, Issue 3
Changes in Continental Freshwater Discharge from 1948 to 2004
journal, May 2009
- Dai, Aiguo; Qian, Taotao; Trenberth, Kevin E.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 22, Issue 10
Uncertainties in Precipitation and Their Impacts on Runoff Estimates
journal, January 2004
- Fekete, Balázs M.; Vörösmarty, Charles J.; Roads, John O.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 17, Issue 2
Detection of a direct carbon dioxide effect in continental river runoff records
journal, February 2006
- Gedney, N.; Cox, P. M.; Betts, R. A.
- Nature, Vol. 439, Issue 7078
Terrestrial vegetation and water balance—hydrological evaluation of a dynamic global vegetation model
journal, January 2004
- Gerten, Dieter; Schaphoff, Sibyll; Haberlandt, Uwe
- Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 286, Issue 1-4
Causes of change in 20th century global river discharge
journal, January 2008
- Gerten, Dieter; Rost, Stefanie; von Bloh, Werner
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 35, Issue 20
A vital link: water and vegetation in the Anthropocene
journal, January 2013
- Gerten, D.
- Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 17, Issue 10
Multimodel Estimate of the Global Terrestrial Water Balance: Setup and First Results
journal, October 2011
- Haddeland, Ingjerd; Clark, Douglas B.; Franssen, Wietse
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 12, Issue 5
Improving the global precipitation record: GPCP Version 2.1
journal, January 2009
- Huffman, George J.; Adler, Robert F.; Bolvin, David T.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 36, Issue 17
North American Carbon Program (NACP) regional interim synthesis: Terrestrial biospheric model intercomparison
journal, May 2012
- Huntzinger, D. N.; Post, W. M.; Wei, Y.
- Ecological Modelling, Vol. 232
The North American Carbon Program Multi-Scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project – Part 1: Overview and experimental design
journal, January 2013
- Huntzinger, D. N.; Schwalm, C.; Michalak, A. M.
- Geoscientific Model Development, Vol. 6, Issue 6
NCEP–DOE AMIP-II Reanalysis (R-2)
journal, November 2002
- Kanamitsu, Masao; Ebisuzaki, Wesley; Woollen, Jack
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 83, Issue 11
Getting the right answers for the right reasons: Linking measurements, analyses, and models to advance the science of hydrology: GETTING THE RIGHT ANSWERS FOR THE RIGHT REASONS
journal, March 2006
- Kirchner, James W.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 42, Issue 3
A catchment-based approach to modeling land surface processes in a general circulation model: 1. Model structure
journal, October 2000
- Koster, Randal D.; Suarez, Max J.; Ducharne, Agnès
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 105, Issue D20
Evaluation of NARR and CLM3.5 outputs for surface water and energy budgets in the Mississippi River Basin
journal, January 2011
- Kumar, Sanjiv; Merwade, Venkatesh
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 116, Issue D8
Modeling the Effects of Groundwater-Fed Irrigation on Terrestrial Hydrology over the Conterminous United States
journal, June 2014
- Leng, Guoyong; Huang, Maoyi; Tang, Qiuhong
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 15, Issue 3
A framework for benchmarking land models
journal, January 2012
- Luo, Y. Q.; Randerson, J. T.; Abramowitz, G.
- Biogeosciences, Vol. 9, Issue 10
Effects of multiple environment stresses on evapotranspiration and runoff over eastern China
journal, March 2012
- Liu, Mingliang; Tian, Hanqin; Lu, Chaoqun
- Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 426-427
Moving beyond heterogeneity and process complexity: A new vision for watershed hydrology: OPINION
journal, July 2007
- McDonnell, J. J.; Sivapalan, M.; Vaché, K.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 43, Issue 7
North American Regional Reanalysis
journal, March 2006
- Mesinger, Fedor; DiMego, Geoff; Kalnay, Eugenia
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 87, Issue 3
Climatic and anthropogenic factors affecting river discharge to the global ocean, 1951–2000
journal, June 2008
- Milliman, J. D.; Farnsworth, K. L.; Jones, P. D.
- Global and Planetary Change, Vol. 62, Issue 3-4
Global runoff anomalies over 1993–2009 estimated from coupled Land–Ocean–Atmosphere water budgets and its relation with climate variability
journal, January 2012
- Munier, S.; Palanisamy, H.; Maisongrande, P.
- Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, Vol. 16, Issue 10
River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I — A discussion of principles
journal, April 1970
- Nash, J. E.; Sutcliffe, J. V.
- Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 10, Issue 3
A Model for Predicting Continental-Scale Vegetation Distribution and Water Balance
journal, May 1995
- Neilson, Ronald P.
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 5, Issue 2
Evaluation of continental carbon cycle simulations with North American flux tower observations
journal, November 2013
- Raczka, Brett M.; Davis, Kenneth J.; Huntzinger, Deborah
- Ecological Monographs, Vol. 83, Issue 4
Assessment and Enhancement of MERRA Land Surface Hydrology Estimates
journal, December 2011
- Reichle, Rolf H.; Koster, Randal D.; De Lannoy, Gabriëlle J. M.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 24, Issue 24
The Global Land Data Assimilation System
journal, March 2004
- Rodell, M.; Houser, P. R.; Jambor, U.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 85, Issue 3
Simple water balance model for estimating runoff at different spatial and temporal scales
journal, March 1996
- Schaake, John C.; Koren, Victor I.; Duan, Qing-Yun
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 101, Issue D3
Development of a 50-Year High-Resolution Global Dataset of Meteorological Forcings for Land Surface Modeling
journal, July 2006
- Sheffield, Justin; Goteti, Gopi; Wood, Eric F.
- Journal of Climate, Vol. 19, Issue 13
Representation of Terrestrial Hydrology and Large-Scale Drought of the Continental United States from the North American Regional Reanalysis
journal, June 2012
- Sheffield, Justin; Livneh, Ben; Wood, Eric F.
- Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 13, Issue 3
Sensitivity of inferred climate model skill to evaluation decisions: a case study using CMIP5 evapotranspiration
journal, May 2013
- Schwalm, Christopher R.; Huntinzger, Deborah N.; Michalak, Anna M.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 8, Issue 2
The impact of climate, CO 2 , nitrogen deposition and land use change on simulated contemporary global river flow : MECHANISMS OF GLOBAL RIVER FLOW
journal, April 2011
- Shi, Xiaoying; Mao, Jiafu; Thornton, Peter E.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 38, Issue 8
Evaluation of ecosystem dynamics, plant geography and terrestrial carbon cycling in the LPJ dynamic global vegetation model
journal, February 2003
- Sitch, S.; Smith, B.; Prentice, I. C.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 9, Issue 2
Upscaling key ecosystem functions across the conterminous United States by a water-centric ecosystem model
journal, January 2011
- Sun, Ge; Caldwell, Peter; Noormets, Asko
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 116
Satellite-based global-ocean mass balance estimates of interannual variability and emerging trends in continental freshwater discharge
journal, October 2010
- Syed, T. H.; Famiglietti, J. S.; Chambers, D. P.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107, Issue 42
Model estimates of net primary productivity, evapotranspiration, and water use efficiency in the terrestrial ecosystems of the southern United States during 1895–2007
journal, March 2010
- Tian, Hanqin; Chen, Guangsheng; Liu, Mingliang
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 259, Issue 7
Fire as a disturbance in mediterranean climate streams
journal, February 2013
- Verkaik, Iraima; Rieradevall, Maria; Cooper, Scott D.
- Hydrobiologia, Vol. 719, Issue 1
Recent trends in the suspended sediment loads of the world's rivers
journal, October 2003
- Walling, D. E.; Fang, D.
- Global and Planetary Change, Vol. 39, Issue 1-2
Climatologically aided interpolation (CAI) of terrestrial air temperature
journal, February 1995
- Willmott, Cort J.; Robeson, Scott M.
- International Journal of Climatology, Vol. 15, Issue 2
Climatology of the terrestrial seasonal water cycle
journal, November 1985
- Willmott, Cort J.; Rowe, Clinton M.; Mintz, Yale
- Journal of Climatology, Vol. 5, Issue 6
Global Precipitation: A 17-Year Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations, Satellite Estimates, and Numerical Model Outputs
journal, November 1997
- Xie, Pingping; Arkin, Phillip A.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 78, Issue 11
A Quasi-Equilibrium Tropical Circulation Model—Implementation and Simulation*
journal, June 2000
- Zeng, Ning; Neelin, J. David; Chou, Chia
- Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 57, Issue 11
Works referencing / citing this record:
Contribution of environmental forcings to US runoff changes for the period 1950–2010
journal, May 2018
- Forbes, Whitney L.; Mao, Jiafu; Jin, Mingzhou
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 5