ERA-Interim/Land: a global land surface reanalysis data set

Balsamo, G.; Albergel, C.; Beljaars, A.; Boussetta, S.; Brun, E.; Cloke, H.; Dee, D.; Dutra, E.; Muñoz-Sabater, J.; Pappenberger, F.; de Rosnay, P.; Stockdale, T.; Vitart, F.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-389-2015

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-389-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-389-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 1

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

21 Jan 2015

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 21 Jan 2015

ERA-Interim/Land: a global land surface reanalysis data set

G. Balsamo, C. Albergel, A. Beljaars, S. Boussetta, E. Brun, H. Cloke, D. Dee, E. Dutra, J. Muñoz-Sabater, F. Pappenberger, P. de Rosnay, T. Stockdale, and F. Vitart

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Jan 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 04 Dec 2013)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C6727: 'Comments on ERA-Interim/land product paper by Gianpaolo Balsamo et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Dec 2013
- AC C8294: 'Response to Reviewer #1 Comments', Gianpaolo Balsamo, 29 Mar 2014
SC C6854: 'Incorrect reference to ISMN', Wouter Dorigo, 23 Dec 2013
- AC C8305: 'Responses to Comment SC6854', Gianpaolo Balsamo, 29 Mar 2014
RC C7087: 'Review of "ERA-Interim/Land: a global land water resources dataset"', Anonymous Referee #2, 06 Jan 2014
- AC C8307: 'Responses to Reviewer #2', Gianpaolo Balsamo, 29 Mar 2014
RC C7135: 'Comments on ERA-Interim/land product paper by Gianpaolo Balsamo et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 07 Jan 2014
- AC C8311: 'Responses to Reviewer #3', Gianpaolo Balsamo, 29 Mar 2014
RC C7409: 'review doi:10.5194/hessd-10-14705-2013', Anonymous Referee #4, 26 Jan 2014
- AC C8316: 'Responses to Reviewer #4', Gianpaolo Balsamo, 29 Mar 2014

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (21 Apr 2014) by Bob Su

AR by Gianpaolo Balsamo on behalf of the Authors (23 May 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (28 May 2014) by Bob Su

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (08 Jun 2014)

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (02 Jul 2014)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (11 Jul 2014) by Bob Su

AR by Gianpaolo Balsamo on behalf of the Authors (24 Oct 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Nov 2014) by Bob Su

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (04 Nov 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Dear Authors,
Thanks a lot for your efforts to revise the manuscript in a structural way, after addressing all the relevant comments. I found the current version is in a good shape to be published, after considering the suggested two minor revisions showed as below.

1. Line 413-416, Line 547 and Line 556-558,you are indicating the improvement of ERA-Interim/land over ERA-Interim is the combined effect of the GPCP precipitation correction and the land surface model improvements. On the other hand, there is no experimentation results to support.

For example, for latent heat flux, you performed two intermediate versions towards ERA-Interim/Land (i) offline with the TESSEL model; (ii) offline with the HTESSEL model without GPCP corrections. Through the comparison of these results, you can identify the improvement is due to either the model change or the GPCP correction.

For the section 3.1.2. river discharge, it is suggested to show the similar results to support your statements in those lines indicated at the beginning of this point.

2. For Figure 14, the description between line 505 and 507 is a bit confusing. It is said that in ERA-Interim most of forests remained too dark.

I assumed that the "darkness" (in Figure 14) refers to the difference between ERA-Interim Albedo and MODIS Albedo (Albedo_Diff= ERAInterim - MODIS). In this case, then the darkness means the lower albedo values in ERA-Interim, when compared to MODIS product. In this case, it seems conflicting with the statement that the forest tend to keep a low albedo while ERA-Interim tends to have a higher albedo not accounting for the openness of many forests. Then, for such statement, you shall mention lightness instead of darkness?

Please clarify this point.

Minor comment:
In Figure 13, in the caption, only the "RMS error" appears in the text, while in the figure, both "RMSE" and "Bias" are there.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (25 Nov 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

I read the latest revision of the manuscript as well as the response
by the authors to the previous round of revisions and was very pleasantly
surprised. The manuscript has been substantially improved and is now
(almost) ready for publication. The paper is an important contribution
to the literature and is now of excellent quality. I appreciate the
authors' effort to make such substantial improvements.

I only have a few minor comments/suggestions, see below. I do not need
to see the manuscript again.

Minor comments:

1) Line 27: Add the term "monthly" after "based on" and break apart
the sentence as suggested below. (Otherwise, the "resolution of about
80 km and 3-hourly frequency" could be mis-read as applying to
the GPCP data.)

"ERA-Interim/Land is the result of a single 32-year simulation with
the latest ECMWF land surface model driven by meteorological forcing
from the ERA-Interim atmospheric reanalysis and precipitation
adjustments based on monthly GPCP v2.1 (Global Precipitation
Climatology Project) observations.
ERA-Interim/Land retains the horizontal resolution of about 80km
and 3-hourly frequency of ERA-Interim."

(This is not the most elegant edit, it only serves to illustrate
the concern. Feel free to improve the edit.)

2) Line 329: Replace

"Particularly the use of climatology ...with the Cressman scheme, make
ERA-Interim/Land ..."

with

"Particularly the use in ERA-Interim of climatology...with the Cressman
scheme make ERA-Interim/Land ..."

(Add "ERA-Interim" to clarify that the climatology and Cressman scheme
are for ERA-Interim. Omit the comma, which does not seem quite
right?)

3) Line 387: Replace

"of data assimilation"

with

"of land surface data assimilation"

4) Line 465: Replace

"GPCP bias correction"

with

"monthly GPCP bias correction"

5) Fig 2: It seems odd that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica
are colored in for soil moisture, which should be irrelevant and
difficult to estimate under the ice. If those areas are not included
the darkest color could be used more efficiently. Similarly, I am
wondering whether the snow over the ice sheets simply reflects
year-after-year accumulation. If so, the estimates plotted over the
ice sheets would not be very useful and should probably be masked, which
would also free up a color that could be put to better use.

6) Fig 8: Please give lat/lon coordinates and/or station IDs
for the two stations plotted here (in the main text and/or
the caption). There are lots of stations in Utah and
Washington.

7) Fig 14: Please define "spring". Do you mean "MAM"?

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (28 Nov 2014) by Bob Su

AR by Gianpaolo Balsamo on behalf of the Authors (07 Dec 2014) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (13 Dec 2014) by Bob Su

AR by Gianpaolo Balsamo on behalf of the Authors (09 Jan 2015)

Short summary

ERA-Interim/Land is a global land surface reanalysis covering the period 1979–2010. It describes the evolution of soil moisture, soil temperature and snowpack. ERA-Interim/Land includes a number of parameterization improvements in the land surface scheme with respect to the original ERA-Interim and a precipitation bias correction based on GPCP. A selection of verification results show the added value in representing the terrestrial water cycle and its main land surface storages and fluxes.