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Title: A gridded global data set of soil, intact regolith, and sedimentary deposit thicknesses for regional and global land surface modeling: GRIDDED GLOBAL DATA SET OF SOIL THICKNESS

Journal Article · · Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2015MS000526· OSTI ID:1235593
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [2];  [4]
  1. Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona USA
  2. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona USA
  3. Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson Arizona USA
  4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder Colorado USA
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Abstract Earth's terrestrial near‐subsurface environment can be divided into relatively porous layers of soil, intact regolith, and sedimentary deposits above unweathered bedrock. Variations in the thicknesses of these layers control the hydrologic and biogeochemical responses of landscapes. Currently, Earth System Models approximate the thickness of these relatively permeable layers above bedrock as uniform globally, despite the fact that their thicknesses vary systematically with topography, climate, and geology. To meet the need for more realistic input data for models, we developed a high‐resolution gridded global data set of the average thicknesses of soil, intact regolith, and sedimentary deposits within each 30 arcsec (∼1 km) pixel using the best available data for topography, climate, and geology as input. Our data set partitions the global land surface into upland hillslope, upland valley bottom, and lowland landscape components and uses models optimized for each landform type to estimate the thicknesses of each subsurface layer. On hillslopes, the data set is calibrated and validated using independent data sets of measured soil thicknesses from the U.S. and Europe and on lowlands using depth to bedrock observations from groundwater wells in the U.S. We anticipate that the data set will prove useful as an input to regional and global hydrological and ecosystems models.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0006773
OSTI ID:
1235593
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1235594; OSTI ID: 1258612
Journal Information:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems; ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 136 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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