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Title: IMPROVING HYDROLOGICAL FORECASTING USING SPACEBORNE SOIL MOISTURE RETRIEVALS

Author
item Crow, Wade
item BINDLISH, RAJAT - SSAI
item Jackson, Thomas

Submitted to: American Meteorological Society Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/5/2005
Publication Date: 2/28/2006
Citation: Crow, W.T., Bindlish, R., Jackson, T.J. 2006. Improving hydrological forecasting using spaceborne soil moisture retrievals. In: Proceedings of the 2006 American Meteorological Society Meeting, January 26-February 2, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia. 2006 CDROM.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Using existing data sets of passive microwave spaceborne soil moisture retrievals, streamflow, and precipitation for 26 basins in the United States Southern Great Plains, a 5-year analysis is performed to quantify the value of soil moisture retrievals derived from the Tropical Rainfall Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) X-band (10.7 GHz) radiometer for forecasting storm event-scale runoff ratios. The predictive ability of spaceborne soil moisture estimates is objectively compared to that obtainable using only available rainfall observations and the antecedent precipitation index (API). The assimilation of spaceborne observations into an API soil moisture proxy is demonstrated to add marginal value to the forecasting of land surface response to precipitation. Additional results demonstrate the potential for improving the utility of spaceborne precipitation observations for hydrologic applications through the assimilation of spaceborne soil moisture retrievals into a simple water balance model.