Geoscientific Model Development
Geoscientific Model Development
GMD
Articles | Volume 18, issue 20
Articles | Volume 18, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-7707-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Collection:
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-7707-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 18, issue 20
Model evaluation paper
 | 
23 Oct 2025
Model evaluation paper |  | 23 Oct 2025

Soil parameterization in land surface models drives large discrepancies in soil moisture predictions across hydrologically complex regions of the contiguous United States

Kachinga Silwimba, Alejandro N. Flores, Irene Cionni, Sharon A. Billings, Pamela L. Sullivan, Hoori Ajami, Daniel R. Hirmas, and Li Li

Data sets

Soil Moisture Data Subset from the Community Land Model Version 5 (CLM5) for the Soil Parameter Model Intercomparison Project (SP-MIP) over the Continental United States (CONUS), 1980-2010 Silwimba Kachinga https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15078448

Copernicus Climate Change Service, Climate Data Store, ERA5-land post-processed daily-statistics from 1950 to present J. Muñoz Sabater et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.e9c9c792

Model code and software

spmip-eof-analysis: CLM5 SPMIP EOF Analysis Toolkit Kachinga Silwimba https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14888812

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Short summary
Land models need reliable soil properties to simulate water, but these settings are uncertain. We analyzed Community Land Model version 5 simulations for the United States from 1980 to 2010 to see how different soil settings shape patterns of soil moisture. Compared with an independent global land dataset, patterns align in many regions but differ in water-limited areas such as the Great Plains. Our maps show where to improve settings and guide future tests with observations.
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Collection
The global hydrological model WaterGAP (GMD/NHESS)