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Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-3132
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-3132
29 Jan 2024
 | 29 Jan 2024

High Resolution Land Surface Modelling over Africa: the role of uncertain soil properties in combination with temporal model resolution

Bamidele Joseph Oloruntoba, Stefan Kollet, Carsten Montzka, Harry Vereecken, and Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen

Abstract. Land surface modelling runs with CLM5 over Africa at 3 km resolution were carried out and we assessed the impact of different sources of soil information and different upscaling strategies of the soil information, also in combination with different atmospheric forcings and different temporal resolutions of those atmospheric forcings. FAO and SoilGrids250m were used as soil information. SoilGrids information at 250 m resolution was upscaled to the 3 km grid scale by three different methods: (i) random selection of one of the small SoilGrids250m grid cells contained in the model grid cell; (ii) arithmetic averaging of SoilGrids soil texture values and (iii) selection of the dominant soil texture. These different soil model inputs were combined with different atmospheric forcings model inputs, which provide inputs at different temporal resolutions: CRUNCEPv7 (6-hourly input resolution), GSWPv3 (3-hourly) and WFDE5 (hourly). We found that varying the source of soil texture information (FAO or SoilGrids250m) influences model water balance outputs more than the upscaling methodology of the soil texture maps. However, for high temporal resolution of atmospheric forcings (WFDE5) the different soil texture upscaling methods result in large differences in simulated evapotranspiration, surface runoff and subsurface runoff at the local and regional scales related to the higher resolution representation of rainfall intensity in the model. The upscaling methodology of fine scale soil texture information influences land surface model simulation results, but only clearly in combination with high temporal resolution atmospheric forcings.

Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. The peer-review process was guided by an independent editor, and the authors also have no other competing interests to declare.

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.
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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

26 Mar 2025
High-resolution land surface modelling over Africa: the role of uncertain soil properties in combination with forcing temporal resolution
Bamidele Oloruntoba, Stefan Kollet, Carsten Montzka, Harry Vereecken, and Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 1659–1683, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1659-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-1659-2025, 2025
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.

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This study uses simulations to understand how the soil information across Africa affects the...
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