Soil moisture can significantly influence atmospheric evolution. However the soil moisture state predicted by land surface models, and subsequently used as the boundary condition in atmospheric models, is often unrealistic. New remote sensing technologies are able to observe surface soil moisture at the scales and coverage required by numerical weather prediction (NWP), and there is potential t...

Three river basins, i.e., the Yangtze river, the Mississippi river and the Loire river, were presented as case studies to explore the association among atmospheric circulations, moisture exports and extreme precipitations in the mid-latitudes. The major moisture source regions in the tropics for the three river basins are first identified using the Tropical Moisture Exports (TMEs) dataset. The ...

Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures Back Close Full Screen / Esc Papers published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions are under open-access review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures Back Close Full Screen / Esc Printer-friendly Version Interactive Discussion EGU Abstract In this paper the ...

Correct knowledge of soil moisture is important for improving the prediction of coupled land surface atmosphere interactions. This is due to the control that soil moisture exerts on the latent and sensible heat flux transfer between the land surface and atmosphere. Because of this strong dependence on moisture availability, improved atmospheric prediction requires correct initialisation of soil...

Water balance considerations at the soil surface lead to an equation that relates the autocorrelation of soil moisture in climate models to 1) seasonality in the statistics of the atmospheric forcing, 2) the variation of evaporation with soil moisture, 3) the variation of runoff with soil moisture, and 4) correlation between the atmospheric forcing and antecedent soil moisture, as perhaps induc...

Soil moisture is an important control over atmospheric evolution, since it controls the partition of incoming radiation into latent and sensible heating. To accurately model these land surface fluxes, atmospheric models must ultimately have accurate soil moisture fields. Yet soil moisture is typically initialised indirectly in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, frequently resulting in u...

Prior numerical modelling studies show that atmospheric dispersion is sensitive to surface heterogeneities, but past studies do not consider the impact of a realistic distribution of surface heterogeneities on mesoscale atmospheric dispersion. While these focussed on dispersion in the convective boundary layer, the present work also considers dispersion in the nocturnal boundary layer and above...

The cosmic-ray method for measuring soil moisture, used in the Cosmic-Ray Soil Moisture Observing System (COSMOS), relies on the exceptional ability of hydrogen to moderate fast neutrons. Sources of hydrogen near the ground, other than soil moisture, affect the neutron measurement and therefore must be quantified. This study investigates the effect of atmospheric water vapor on the cosmic-ray p...