A Long-Term Hydrologically Based Dataset of Land Surface Fluxes and States for the Conterminous United States Update and Extensions

• Published in: Journal of climate Vol. 26; no. 23; pp. 9384 - 9392
• Main Authors: Livneh, Ben, Rosenberg, Eric A., Lin, Chiyu, Nijssen, Bart, Mishra, Vimal, Andreadis, Kostas M., Maurer, Edwin P., Lettenmaier, Dennis P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, MA American Meteorological Society 01.12.2013
• Subjects: Algorithms; Assessments; Climate; Climate change; Climate models; Climate system; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Daily temperatures; Datasets; Downwelling; Drought; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; El Nino; Energy budget; Energy transfer; Environmental assessment; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Fluxes; Freshwater; General circulation models; Heat flux; Heat transfer; Humidity; Hydrologic data; Hydrological modeling; Hydrology; Hydrology. Hydrogeology; I.R. radiation; Infiltration capacity; Infrared radiation; Land; Mean daily temperatures; Mean temperatures; Meteorological data; Meteorology; Modeling; Moisture effects; NOAA; Ocean currents; Oceanic convection; Precipitation; Precipitation (meteorological); Propagation; Radiation; Rain; Remote sensing; Resolution; Sea surface temperature; Simulations; Snow-water equivalent; Soil moisture; Soil water; Southern Oscillation; Spatial discrimination; Spatial resolution; Stream flow; Surface fluxes; Surface runoff; Surface water; Teleconnections; Temperature; Variables; Water discharge; Winter; United States; Northern Hemisphere; United States > US; North America; Atlantic Ocean; California; USA; Century 20th; Climatology; Meteorological observation; hydrology; Time series; Observation data; spatial resolution; Long term variation; North America; high resolution
• ISSN: 0894-8755; 1520-0442; 1520-0442
• DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00508.1

This paper describes a publicly available, long-term (1915–2011), hydrologically consistent dataset for the conterminous United States, intended to aid in studies of water and energy exchanges at the land surface. These data are gridded at a spatial resolution of 1 16 0 latitude/longitude and are derived from daily temperature and precipitation observations from approximately 20 000 NOAA Cooperative Observer (COOP) stations. The available meteorological data include temperature, precipitation, and wind, as well as derived humidity and downwelling solar and infrared radiation estimated via algorithms that index these quantities to the daily mean temperature, temperature range, and precipitation, and disaggregate them to 3-hourly time steps. Furthermore, the authors employ the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model to produce 3-hourly estimates of soil moisture, snow water equivalent, discharge, and surface heat fluxes. Relative to an earlier similar dataset by Maurer and others, the improved dataset has 1) extended the period of analysis (1915–2011 versus 1950–2000), 2) increased the spatial resolution from ⅛° to 1 16 0 , and 3) used an updated version of VIC. The previous dataset has been widely used in water and energy budget studies, climate change assessments, drought reconstructions, and for many other purposes. It is anticipated that the spatial refinement and temporal extension will be of interest to a wide cross section of the scientific community.