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Structure in fluctuations of large-scale soil moisture climate due to external random forcing and internal feedbacks

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Abstract

Large-scale fields of soil moisture are forced by atmospheric precipitation and radiative forcing. When these forcing factors are themselves influenced by surface and soil moisture processes, the result is a nonlinear land-atmosphere system with inherent feedback mechanisms that may strongly modulate variability in climate. Given such feedbacks, simple randomness in the forcing factors may be manifested as a complex statistical signature in the surface hydrology. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of non-Gaussian and colored-noise on the probability distribution of soil moisture resulting from the statistical-dynamical land-atmosphere interaction model of Rodriguez-Iturbe et al. (1991). Persistence of hydroclimatologic anomalies as characterized by the correlation time scale of soil moisture is discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Jingfeng Wang, Rafael L. Bras & Dara Entekhabi

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  1. Jingfeng Wang
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  2. Rafael L. Bras
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  3. Dara Entekhabi
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Wang, J., Bras, R.L. & Entekhabi, D. Structure in fluctuations of large-scale soil moisture climate due to external random forcing and internal feedbacks. Stochastic Hydrol Hydraul 11, 95–114 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02427910

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