Data-driven estimates of evapotranspiration  and its controls in the Congo Basin

Burnett, Michael W.; Quetin, Gregory R.; Konings, Alexandra G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4189-2020

Articles | Volume 24, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4189-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4189-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 8

Research article

|

27 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2020

Data-driven estimates of evapotranspiration and its controls in the Congo Basin

Michael W. Burnett, Gregory R. Quetin, and Alexandra G. Konings

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-4189-2020-supplement

Data sets

Congo Basin Evapotranspiration (ET) M. W. Burnett, G. R. Quetin, and A. G. Konings https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/JPVMB

S. Sorooshian, K. Hsu, D. Braithwaite, H. Ashouri, and NOAA CDR Program NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) of Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN-CDR) https://doi.org/10.7289/V51V5BWQ

SSEBop Version 4.0 Monthly ETa, USGS Famine Early Warning Systems Network G. B. Senay, S. Bohms, R. Singh, P. A. Gowda, N. M. Velpuri, H. Alemu, and J. P. Verdin https://earlywarning.usgs.gov/fews/product/460

MOD16A2 MODIS/Terra Net Evapotranspiration 8-Day L4 Global 500m SIN Grid V006 S. Running, Q. Mu, and M. Zhao https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD16A2.006

GPCC Full Data Monthly Product Version 7.0 at 2.5°: Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation from Rain-Gauges built on GTS-based and Historic Data U. Schneider, A. Becker, P. Finger, A. Meyer-Christoffer, B. Rudolf, and M. Ziese https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V7_250

CERES Level 3B EBAF-Surface Terra + Aqua netCDF file – Edition 4.0 N. Loeb https://doi.org/10.5067/TERRA+AQUA/CERES/EBAFSURFACE_L3B004.0

CERES SYN1DEG-MONTH HDF4 file – Edition 4A D. Doelling https://doi.org/10.5067/TERRA+AQUA/CERES/SYN1DEGMONTH_L3.004A

MCD12C1 MODIS/Terra + Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V006 M. Friedl and D. Sulla-Menashe https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12C1.006

Short summary

Water that evaporates from Africa's tropical forests provides rainfall throughout the continent. However, there are few sources of meteorological data in central Africa, so we use observations from satellites to estimate evaporation from the Congo Basin at different times of the year. We find that existing evaporation estimates in tropical Africa do not accurately capture seasonal variations in evaporation and that fluctuations in soil moisture and solar radiation drive evaporation rates.