Soil Moisture Observations for LDAS Evaluation

As part of the Land Data Assimilation Schemes (LDAS) project, we have compiled a data set of soil moisture observations for the United States. This includes data from NRCS, Ameriflux, Illinois and Moistnet (see figure). Here we present analyses of the observational record for the LDAS region for 1998, including scales of soil moisture variations, vertical profiles, and trends. We compare these observations to LDAS calculations and present preliminary conclusions concerning the ability of the LDAS models to simulate soil moisture.