An Indirect Data Assimilation Scheme for Deep Soil Temperature in the Pleim–Xiu Land Surface Model

Abstract

Abstract The Pleim–Xiu land surface model (PX LSM) has been improved by the addition of a second indirect data assimilation scheme. The first, which was described previously, is a technique in which soil moisture is nudged according to the biases in 2-m air temperature and relative humidity between the model- and observation-based analyses. The new technique involves nudging the deep soil temperature in the soil temperature force–restore (FR) model according to model bias in 2-m air temperature only during nighttime. While the FR technique is computationally efficient and very accurate for the special conditions for which it was derived, it is very dependent on the deep soil temperature that drives the restoration term of the surface soil temperature equation. Thus, adjustment of the deep soil temperature to optimize the 2-m air temperature during the night, when surface forcing is minimal, provides significant advantages over other methods of deep soil moisture initialization. Simulations of the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) using the PX LSM with and without the new deep soil temperature nudging scheme demonstrate substantial benefits of the new scheme for reducing error and bias of the 2-m air temperature. The effects of the new nudging scheme are most pronounced in the winter (January 2006) during which the model’s cold bias is greatly reduced. Air temperature error and bias are also reduced in a summer simulation (August 2006) with the greatest benefits in less vegetated and more arid regions. Thus, the deep temperature nudging scheme complements the soil moisture nudging scheme because it is most effective for conditions in which the soil moisture scheme is least effective, that is, when evapotranspiration is not important (winter and arid climates).