Representation of Spatial Variability of the Water Fluxes over the Congo Basin Region

Sensors

Xiaoyong Xu¹  Marc De Benedetti²  G. W. K. Moore² 

[1] Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada;Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada;

关键词: precipitation;    evapotranspiration;    model resolution;    spatial variability;    satellite precipitation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s22010084

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The Congo Basin, being one of the major basins in the tropics, is important to the global climate, yet its hydrology is perhaps the least understood. Although various reanalysis/analysis datasets have been used to improve our understanding of the basin’s hydroclimate, they have been historically difficult to validate due to sparse in situ measurements. This study analyzes the impact of model resolution on the spatial variability of the Basin’s hydroclimate using the Decorrelation Length Scale (DLCS) technique, as it is not subject to uniform model bias. The spatial variability within the precipitation (P), evaporation/evapotranspiration (E), and precipitation-minus-evaporation (P-E) fields were investigated across four spatial resolutions using reanalysis/analysis datasets from the ECMWF ranging from 9–75 km. Results show that the representation of P and P-E fields over the Basin and the equatorial Atlantic Ocean are sensitive to model resolution, as the spatial patterns of their DCLS results are resolution-dependent. However, the resolution-independent features are predominantly found in the E field. Furthermore, the P field is the dominant source of spatial variability of P-E, occurring over the land and the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, while over the Southern Atlantic, P-E is mainly governed by the E field, with both showing weak spatial variability.

【 授权许可】

Unknown