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Title: Comparing evapotranspiration from Eddy covariance measurements, water budgets, remote sensing, and land surface models over Canada a, b

Journal Article · · Journal of Hydrometeorology
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [1];  [6]
  1. Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Ottawa, ON (Canada)
  2. Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (United States)
  3. Univ. of Montana, Missoula, MT (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  5. Thunen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Braunschweig (Germany)
  6. The Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
  7. NOAA, Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Oak Ridge Assoc. Univ., Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Here, this study compares six evapotranspiration ET products for Canada's landmass, namely, eddy covariance EC measurements; surface water budget ET; remote sensing ET from MODIS; and land surface model (LSM) ET from the Community Land Model (CLM), the Ecological Assimilation of Land and Climate Observations (EALCO) model, and the Variable Infiltration Capacity model (VIC). The ET climatology over the Canadian landmass is characterized and the advantages and limitations of the datasets are discussed. The EC measurements have limited spatial coverage, making it difficult for model validations at the national scale. Water budget ET has the largest uncertainty because of data quality issues with precipitation in mountainous regions and in the north. MODIS ET shows relatively large uncertainty in cold seasons and sparsely vegetated regions. The LSM products cover the entire landmass and exhibit small differences in ET among them. Annual ET from the LSMs ranges from small negative values to over 600 mm across the landmass, with a countrywide average of 256 ± 15 mm. Seasonally, the countrywide average monthly ET varies from a low of about 3 mm in four winter months (November-February) to 67 ± 7 mm in July. The ET uncertainty is scale dependent. Larger regions tend to have smaller uncertainties because of the offset of positive and negative biases within the region. More observation networks and better quality controls are critical to improving ET estimates. Future techniques should also consider a hybrid approach that integrates strengths of the various ET products to help reduce uncertainties in ET estimation.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1333655
Journal Information:
Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 16, Issue 4; ISSN 1525-755X
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 69 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Enhancement of a Parsimonious Water Balance Model to Simulate Surface Hydrology in a Glacierized Watershed journal May 2018
Multimodel‐based analyses of evapotranspiration and its controls in China over the last three decades journal April 2020
Higher temporal evapotranspiration estimation with improved SEBS model from geostationary meteorological satellite data journal October 2019
A Simulation Study of Global Evapotranspiration Components Using the Community Land Model journal May 2018
Improving Representation of Deforestation Effects on Evapotranspiration in the E3SM Land Model journal August 2019
Risks to water resources and development of a management strategy in the river basins of the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China journal January 2020
Modelling the dynamics of evapotranspiration using Variable Infiltration Capacity model and regionally calibrated Hargreaves approach journal July 2018
Effects of Distinguishing Vegetation Types on the Estimates of Remotely Sensed Evapotranspiration in Arid Regions journal December 2019
Downscaling of MODIS One Kilometer Evapotranspiration Using Landsat-8 Data and Machine Learning Approaches journal March 2016