Global Evaluation of the ISBA-TRIP Continental Hydrological System. Part II: Uncertainties in River Routing Simulation Related to Flow Velocity and Groundwater Storage

Abstract

Abstract In the companion paper to this one (Part I), the Interactions between Soil, Biosphere, and Atmosphere–Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (ISBA-TRIP) continental hydrological system of the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques is evaluated by using river discharge measurements and terrestrial water storage (TWS) variations derived from three independent datasets of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). One of the conclusions is that the river reservoir simulated by TRIP at the global scale seems to be one of the main sources of TWS and/or discharge errors. Here, the authors study these uncertainties in river routing processes, such as flow velocity and groundwater storage. For this purpose, a simple groundwater reservoir depending on a time delay factor and a variable streamflow velocity calculated via Manning’s formula are added to TRIP following the approach of Arora and Boer. The previous and the new TRIP are then compared, and two studies of the sensitivity to the groundwater time delay factor and to the flow velocity are performed. Using the same experiment design as in Part I, the authors show that the effect of this flow velocity and of the groundwater time delay factor on the ISBA-TRIP simulation is potentially significant. Nevertheless, over tropical and temperate basins, a competition between the two processes implies a slight difference between the previous and the new TRIP compared to both the GRACE and the discharge signals. The global results underline that simulating a realistic streamflow velocity is a key process for global-scale application.