A Synthetic Study on the Influence of Error in Surface Soil Moisture Observations on Assimilation

Jeffrey Walker GEST/NASA-GSFC

Conclusions

•Typically observations of surface soil moisture must have an accuracy of better than 5% v/v. •If model covariance forecasts are imperfect and observation errors are large there may be a slight degradation of the model forecast. •To achieve the best results, it is important that the model, model forcing and observations be unbiased, or the bias modeled as part of the assimilation framework.