Assessment of Noah land surface model-based soil moisture using GRACE-observed TWSA and TWSC

The Noah 3.3 Land Surface Model (LSM) was used to estimate the global soil moisture in this study and these soil moisture datasets were assessed against satellite-based and reanalysis soil moisture products. The Noah 3.3 LSM simulated soil moistures in four soil layers and root-zone soil moistures defined as a depth-weighted average in the first three soil layers (i.e., up to 1.0 m deep). The Noah LSM soil moisture products were then compared with a satellite-based soil moisture dataset (European Space Agency Climate Change Initiatives (ESA CCI) SM v04.4) and reanalysis soil moisture datasets (ERA-interim). In addition, the five major basins (Yangtze, Mekong, Mississippi, Murray-Darling, Amazon) were selected for the assesment with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)-based Total Water Storage Anomaly (TWSA) and TWS Change (TWSC). The results revealed that high anomaly correlations were found in most of the Asia-Pacific regions including East Asia, South Asia, Australia, and Noth and South America. While the anomaly correlations in the Murray-Darling basin were somewhat low, relatively higher anomaly correlations in the other basins were found. It is concluded that this study can be useful for the development of soil moisture based drought indices and subsequently can be helpful to reduce damages from drought by timely providing an efficacious strategy.