Toward a Regional MOD16: Addition of a High-resolution Precipitation Input and a Simple Soil Moisture Component to the MOD16 Algorithm

Abstract:

MOD16 is a Penman-Monteith based remote sensing model developed to assess spatial patterns of terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET) across the entire globe. Due to the lack of a satisfactory global precipitation dataset, MOD16 was originally forced to rely on vapor pressure deficit as water stress input. As high resolution precipitation datasets are becoming available, the logic of MOD16 has been revisited to include a daily 4-km gridded precipitation input and a simple soil moisture model. Estimates yielded by the new model, titled "regional MOD16", have been validated against several flux towers in the north central climate region of the United States. Results show that adding a precipitation input and a simple soil moisture model can improve the modeled estimates across multiple biomes and elevation gradients.