Implementation of global soil databases in the Noah-MP model and the effects on simulated mean and extreme soil hydrothermal changes

Ishola, Kazeem Abiodun; Mills, Gerald; Sati, Ankur Prabhat; Obe, Benjamin; Demuzere, Matthias; Upreti, Deepak; Misra, Gourav; Lewis, Paul; Walsh, Daire; McCarthy, Tim; Fealy, Rowan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2551-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2551-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2551-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 12

Research article

|

18 Jun 2025

Research article |

| 18 Jun 2025

Implementation of global soil databases in the Noah-MP model and the effects on simulated mean and extreme soil hydrothermal changes

Kazeem Abiodun Ishola, Gerald Mills, Ankur Prabhat Sati, Benjamin Obe, Matthias Demuzere, Deepak Upreti, Gourav Misra, Paul Lewis, Daire Walsh, Tim McCarthy, and Rowan Fealy

Data sets

ERA5-Land hourly data from 1950 to present J. Muñoz Sabater https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e2161bac

WPS V4 Geographical Static Data Downloads Page WRF Users Page https://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_sources_wps_geog.html

CORINE Land Cover 2018 (raster 100 m), Europe, 6-yearly - version 2020_20u1, May 2020 EEA https://doi.org/10.2909/960998c1-1870-4e82-8051-6485205ebbac

Soil Water Index 2015-present (raster 1 km), Europe, daily - version 1 EEA https://doi.org/10.2909/0929daf7-a0a3-4428-9bc1-cec6691e85d8

Historical Data Met Éireann https://www.met.ie/climate/available-data/historical-data

Model code and software

NCAR/hrldas: Release of v5.0.0 C. He et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7901868

Short summary

Global soil information introduces uncertainty into models that simulate soil hydrothermal changes. Using the Noah with Multiparameterization (Noah-MP) model with two different global soil datasets, we find under-represented soil properties in wet loam, causing a dry bias in soil moisture. This bias is more pronounced and drought categories are more severe in the SoilGrids dataset. We conclude that models should incorporate detailed, region-specific soil information to minimize model uncertainties.