Information theoretic evaluation of satellite soil moisture retrievals.

Microwave radiometry has a long legacy of providing estimates of remotely sensed near surface soil moisture measurements over continental and global scales. A consistent assessment of the errors and uncertainties associated with these retrievals is important for their effective utilization in modeling, data assimilation and end-use application environments. This article presents an evaluation of soil moisture retrieval products from AMSR-E, ASCAT, SMOS, AMSR2 and SMAP instruments using information theory-based metrics. These metrics rely on time series analysis of soil moisture retrievals for estimating the measurement error, level of randomness (entropy) and regularity (complexity) of the data. The results of the study indicate that the measurement errors in the remote sensing retrievals are significantly larger than that of the ground soil moisture measurements. The SMAP retrievals, on the other hand, were found to have reduced errors (comparable to those of in-situ datasets), particularly over areas with moderate vegetation. The SMAP retrievals also demonstrate high information content relative to other retrieval products, with higher levels of complexity and reduced entropy. Finally, a joint evaluation of the entropy and complexity of remotely sensed soil moisture products indicates that the information content of the AMSR-E, ASCAT, SMOS and AMSR2 retrievals is low, whereas SMAP retrievals show better performance. The use of information theoretic assessments is effective in quantifying the required levels of improvements needed in the remote sensing soil moisture retrievals to enhance their utility and information content.

Development of High-Resolution Dynamic Dust Source Function -A Case Study with a Strong Dust Storm in a Regional Model.

A high-resolution dynamic dust source has been developed in the NASA Unified-Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) model to improve the existing coarse static dust source. In the new dust source map, topographic depression is in 1-km resolution and surface bareness is derived using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The new dust source better resolves the complex topographic distribution over the Western United States where its magnitude is higher than the existing, coarser resolution static source. A case study is conducted with an extreme dust storm that occurred in Phoenix, Arizona in 02-03 UTC July 6, 2011. The NU-WRF model with the new high-resolution dynamic dust source is able to successfully capture the dust storm, which was not achieved with the old source identification. However the case study also reveals several challenges in reproducing the time evolution of the short-lived, extreme dust storm events.

Tradeoff between cost and accuracy in large-scale surface water dynamic modeling.

Recent efforts have led to the development of the local inertia formulation (INER) for an accurate but still cost-efficient representation of surface water dynamics, compared to the widely used kinematic wave equation (KINE). In this study, both formulations are evaluated over the Amazon basin in terms of computational costs and accuracy in simulating streamflows and water levels through synthetic experiments and comparisons against ground-based observations. Varying time steps are considered as part of the evaluation and INER at 60-second time step is adopted as the reference for synthetic experiments. Five hybrid (HYBR) realizations are performed based on maps representing the spatial distribution of the two formulations that physically represent river reach flow dynamics within the domain. Maps have fractions of KINE varying from 35.6% to 82.8%. KINE runs show clear deterioration along the Amazon river and main tributaries, with maximum RMSE values for streamflow and water level reaching 7827m3.s-1 and 1379cm near the basin's outlet. However, KINE is at least 25% more efficient than INER with low model sensitivity to longer time steps. A significant improvement is achieved with HYBR, resulting in maximum RMSE values of 3.9-292m3.s-1 for streamflows and 1.1-28.5cm for water levels, and cost reduction of 6-16%, depending on the map used. Optimal results using HYBR are obtained when the local inertia formulation is used in about one third of the Amazon basin, reducing computational costs in simulations while preserving accuracy. However, that threshold may vary when applied to different regions, according to their hydrodynamics and geomorphological characteristics.

Upper Blue Nile Basin Water Budget from a Multi-Model Perspective.

Improved understanding of the water balance in the Blue Nile is of critical importance because of increasingly frequent hydroclimatic extremes under a changing climate. The intercomparison and evaluation of multiple land surface models (LSMs) associated with different meteorological forcing and precipitation datasets can offer a moderate range of water budget variable estimates. In this context, two LSMs, Noah version 3.3 (Noah3.3) and Catchment LSM version Fortuna 2.5 (CLSMF2.5) coupled with the Hydrological Modeling and Analysis Platform (HyMAP) river routing scheme are used to produce hydrological estimates over the region. The two LSMs were forced with different combinations of two reanalysis-based meteorological datasets from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications datasets (i.e., MERRA-Land and MERRA-2) and three observation-based precipitation datasets, generating a total of 16 experiments. Modeled evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow, and terrestrial water storage estimates were evaluated against the Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) ET, in-situ streamflow observations, and NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) products, respectively. Results show that CLSMF2.5 provided better representation of the water budget variables than Noah3.3 in terms of Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient when considering all meteorological forcing datasets and precipitation datasets. The model experiments forced with observation-based products, the Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), outperform those run with MERRA-Land and MERRA-2 precipitation. The results presented in this paper would suggest that the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System incorporate CLSMF2.5 and HyMAP routing scheme to better represent the water balance in this region.

A Remote Sensing-Based Tool for Assessing Rainfall-Driven Hazards.

RainyDay is a Python-based platform that couples rainfall remote sensing data with Stochastic Storm Transposition (SST) for modeling rainfall-driven hazards such as floods and landslides. SST effectively lengthens the extreme rainfall record through temporal resampling and spatial transposition of observed storms from the surrounding region to create many extreme rainfall scenarios. Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves are often used for hazard modeling but require long records to describe the distribution of rainfall depth and duration and do not provide information regarding rainfall space-time structure, limiting their usefulness to small scales. In contrast, RainyDay can be used for many hazard applications with 1-2 decades of data, and output rainfall scenarios incorporate detailed space-time structure from remote sensing. Thanks to global satellite coverage, RainyDay can be used in inaccessible areas and developing countries lacking ground measurements, though results are impacted by remote sensing errors. RainyDay can be useful for hazard modeling under nonstationary conditions.

Calibration to improve forward model simulation of microwave emissivity at GPM frequencies over the U.S. Southern Great Plains.

Better estimation of land surface microwave emissivity promises to improve over-land precipitation retrievals in the GPM era. Forward models of land microwave emissivity are available but have suffered from poor parameter specification and limited testing. Here, forward models are calibrated and the accompanying change in predictive power is evaluated. With inputs (e.g., soil moisture) from the Noah land surface model and applying MODIS LAI data, two microwave emissivity models are tested, the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) and Community Microwave Emission Model (CMEM). The calibration is conducted with the NASA Land Information System (LIS) parameter estimation subsystem using AMSR-E based emissivity retrievals for the calibration dataset. The extent of agreement between the modeled and retrieved estimates is evaluated using the AMSR-E retrievals for a separate 7-year validation period. Results indicate that calibration can significantly improve the agreement, simulating emissivity with an across-channel average root-mean-square-difference (RMSD) of about 0.013, or about 20% lower than if relying on daily estimates based on climatology. The results also indicate that calibration of the microwave emissivity model alone, as was done in prior studies, results in as much as 12% higher across-channel average RMSD, as compared to joint calibration of the land surface and microwave emissivity models. It remains as future work to assess the extent to which the improvements in emissivity estimation translate into improvements in precipitation retrieval accuracy.

Operational Hydrological Forecasting during the IPHEx-IOP Campaign - Meet the Challenge.

An operational streamflow forecasting testbed was implemented during the Intense Observing Period (IOP) of the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx-IOP) in May-June 2014 to characterize flood predictability in complex terrain. Specifically, hydrological forecasts were issued daily for 12 headwater catchments in the Southern Appalachians using the Duke Coupled surface-groundwater Hydrology Model (DCHM) forced by hourly atmospheric fields and QPFs (Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts) produced by the NASA-Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) model. Previous day hindcasts forced by radar-based QPEs (Quantitative Precipitation Estimates) were used to provide initial conditions for present day forecasts. This manuscript first describes the operational testbed framework and workflow during the IPHEx-IOP including a synthesis of results. Second, various data assimilation approaches are explored a posteriori (post-IOP) to improve operational (flash) flood forecasting. Although all flood events during the IOP were predicted by the IPHEx operational testbed with lead times of up to 6 hours, significant errors of over- and, or under-prediction were identified that could be traced back to the QPFs and subgrid-scale variability of radar QPEs. To improve operational flood prediction, three data-merging strategies were pursued post-IOP: 1) the spatial patterns of QPFs were improved through assimilation of satellite-based microwave radiances into NU-WRF; 2) QPEs were improved by merging raingauge observations with ground-based radar observations using bias-correction methods to produce streamflow hindcasts and associated uncertainty envelope capturing the streamflow observations, and 3) river discharge observations were assimilated into the DCHM to improve streamflow forecasts using the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF), the fixed-lag Ensemble Kalman Smoother (EnKS), and the Asynchronous EnKF (i.e. AEnKF) methods. Both flood hindcasts and forecasts were significantly improved by assimilating discharge observations into the DCHM. Specifically, Nash-Sutcliff Efficiency (NSE) values as high as 0.98, 0.71 and 0.99 at 15-min time-scales were attained for three headwater catchments in the inner mountain region demonstrating that the assimilation of discharge observations at the basin's outlet can reduce the errors and uncertainties in soil moisture at very small scales. Success in operational flood forecasting at lead times of 6, 9, 12 and 15hrs was also achieved through discharge assimilation with NSEs of 0.87, 0.78, 0.72 and 0.51, respectively. Analysis of experiments using various data assimilation system configurations indicates that the optimal assimilation time window depends both on basin properties and storm-specific space-time-structure of rainfall, and therefore adaptive, context-aware, configurations of the data assimilation system are recommended to address the challenges of flood prediction in headwater basins.

Evaluating ESA CCI soil moisture in East Africa.

To assess growing season conditions where ground based observations are limited or unavailable, food security and agricultural drought monitoring analysts rely on publicly available remotely sensed rainfall and vegetation greenness. There are also remotely sensed soil moisture observations from missions like the European Space Agency (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), however these time series are still too short to conduct studies that demonstrate the utility of these data for operational applications, or to provide historical context for extreme wet or dry events. To promote the use of remotely sensed soil moisture in agricultural drought and food security monitoring, we use East Africa as a case study to evaluate the quality of a 30+ year time series of merged active-passive microwave soil moisture from the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI-SM). Compared to the Normalized Difference Vegetation index (NDVI) and modeled soil moisture products, we found substantial spatial and temporal gaps in the early part of the CCI-SM record, with adequate data coverage beginning in 1992. From this point forward, growing season CCI-SM anomalies were well correlated (R>0.5) with modeled, seasonal soil moisture, and in some regions, NDVI. We use correlation analysis and qualitative comparisons at seasonal time scales to show that remotely sensed soil moisture can add information to a convergence of evidence framework that traditionally relies on rainfall and NDVI in moderately vegetated regions.

Development of a composite drought indicator for operational drought monitoring in the MENA region.

This paper presents the composite drought indicator (CDI) that Jordanian, Lebanese, Moroccan, and Tunisian government agencies now produce monthly to support operational drought management decision making, and it describes their iterative co-development processes. The CDI is primarily intended to monitor agricultural and ecological drought on a seasonal time scale. It uses remote sensing and modelled data inputs, and it reflects anomalies in precipitation, vegetation, soil moisture, and evapotranspiration. Following quantitative and qualitative validation assessments, engagements with policymakers, and consideration of agencies' technical and institutional capabilities and constraints, we made changes to CDI input data, modelling procedures, and integration to tailor the system for each national context. We summarize validation results, drought modelling challenges and how we overcame them through CDI improvements, and we describe the monthly CDI production process and outputs. Finally, we synthesize procedural and technical aspects of CDI development and reflect on the constraints we faced as well as trade-offs made to optimize the CDI for operational monitoring to support policy decision-making-including aspects of salience, credibility, and legitimacy-within each national context.

Assimilation of Remotely Sensed Leaf Area Index Enhances the Estimation of Anthropogenic Irrigation Water Use.

Representation of irrigation in Earth System Models has advanced over the past decade, yet large uncertainties persist in the effective simulation of irrigation practices, particularly over locations where the on-ground practices and climate impacts are less reliably known. Here we investigate the utility of assimilating remotely sensed vegetation data for improving irrigation water use and associated fluxes within a land surface model. We show that assimilating optical sensor-based leaf area index estimates significantly improves the simulation of irrigation water use when compared to the USGS ground reports. For heavily irrigated areas, assimilation improves the evaporative fluxes and gross primary production (GPP) simulations, with the median correlation increasing by 0.1-1.1 and 0.3-0.6, respectively, as compared to the reference datasets. Further, bias improvements in the range of 14-35 mm mo-1 and 10-82 g m-2 mo-1 are obtained in evaporative fluxes and GPP as a result of incorporating vegetation constraints, respectively. These results demonstrate that the use of remotely sensed vegetation data is an effective, observation-informed, globally applicable approach for simulating irrigation and characterizing its impacts on water and carbon states.

Applications of Dynamic Land Surface Information for Passive Microwave Precipitation Retrieval.

Accurate, physically based precipitation retrieval over global land surfaces is an important goal of the NASA/JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM). This is a difficult problem for the passive microwave constellation, as the signal over radiometrically warm land surfaces in the microwave frequencies means that the measurements used are indirect and typically require inferring some type of relationship between an observed scattering signal and precipitation at the surface. GPM, with collocated radiometer and dual-frequency radar, is an excellent tool for tackling this problem and improving global retrievals. In the years following the launch of the GPM Core Observatory satellite, physically based passive microwave retrieval of precipitation over land continues to be challenging. Validation efforts suggest that the operational GPM passive microwave algorithm, the Goddard profiling algorithm (GPROF), tends to overestimate precipitation at the low (<5 mm h-1) end of the distribution over land. In this work, retrieval sensitivities to dynamic surface conditions are explored through enhancement of the algorithm with dynamic, retrieved information from a GPM-derived optimal estimation scheme. The retrieved parameters describing surface and background characteristics replace current static or ancillary GPROF information including emissivity, water vapor, and snow cover. Results show that adding this information decreases probability of false detection by 50% and, most importantly, the enhancements with retrieved parameters move the retrieval away from dependence on ancillary datasets and lead to improved physical consistency.

NCA-LDAS: Overview and Analysis of Hydrologic Trends for the National Climate Assessment.

Terrestrial hydrologic trends over the conterminous United States are estimated for 1980-2015 using the National Climate Assessment Land Data Assimilation System (NCA-LDAS) reanalysis. NCA-LDAS employs the uncoupled Noah version 3.3 land surface model at 0.125°× 1258° forced with NLDAS-2 meteorology, rescaled Climate Prediction Center precipitation, and assimilated satellite-based soil moisture, snow depth, and irrigation products. Mean annual trends are reported using the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test at p < 0.1 significance. Results illustrate the interrelationship between regional gradients in forcing trends and trends in other land energy and water stores and fluxes. Mean precipitation trends range from +3 to +9 mm yr-1 in the upper Great Plains and Northeast to -1 to -9 mm yr-1 in the West and South, net radiation flux trends range from 10.05 to 10.20 W m-2 yr-1 in the East to -0.05 to -0.20 W m-2 yr-1 in the West, and U.S.-wide temperature trends average about +0.03 K yr-1. Trends in soil moisture, snow cover, latent and sensible heat fluxes, and runoff are consistent with forcings, contributing to increasing evaporative fraction trends from west to east. Evaluation of NCA-LDAS trends compared to independent data indicates mixed results. The RMSE of U.S.-wide trends in number of snow cover days improved from 3.13 to 2.89 days yr-1 while trend detection increased 11%. Trends in latent heat flux were hardly affected, with RMSE decreasing only from 0.17 to 0.16 W m-2 yr-1, while trend detection increased 2%. NCA-LDAS runoff trends degraded significantly from 2.6 to 16.1 mm yr-1 while trend detection was unaffected. Analysis also indicated that NCA-LDAS exhibits relatively more skill in low precipitation station density areas, suggesting there are limits to the effectiveness of satellite data assimilation in densely gauged regions. Overall, NCA-LDAS demonstrates capability for quantifying physically consistent, U.S. hydrologic climate trends over the satellite era.

Earth observations and integrative models in support of food and water security.

Global food production depends upon many factors that Earth observing satellites routinely measure about water, energy, weather, and ecosystems. Increasingly sophisticated, publicly-available satellite data products can improve efficiencies in resource management and provide earlier indication of environmental disruption. Satellite remote sensing provides a consistent, long-term record that can be used effectively to detect large-scale features over time, such as a developing drought. Accuracy and capabilities have increased along with the range of Earth observations and derived products that can support food security decisions with actionable information. This paper highlights major capabilities facilitated by satellite observations and physical models that have been developed and validated using remotely-sensed observations. Although we primarily focus on variables relevant to agriculture, we also include a brief description of the growing use of Earth observations in support of aquaculture and fisheries.

The instantaneous retrieval of precipitation over land by temporal variation at 19 GHz.

The primary signal used in all current passive microwave precipitation retrieval algorithms over land is the depression of the instantaneous brightness temperature (TB) caused by ice scattering. This study presents a new methodology to retrieve instantaneous precipitation rate over land by using TB temporal variation (ΔTB) at 19 GHz, which primarily reflects the surface emissivity variation due to the precipitation impact. As a proof-of-concept, we exploit observations from five polar-orbiting satellites over the Southern Great Plains (SGP) of the United States. Results show that ΔTB at 19 GHz correlate well with the instantaneous precipitation rate. Further analysis shows that ΔTB at 19 GHz is better correlated with the precipitation rate when multiple satellite observations are used due to the much shorter re-visit time for a certain location. The retrieved instantaneous precipitation rate over SGP from ΔTB at 19 GHz reasonably agrees with the surface radar observations, with the correlation, the root mean square error and the bias being 0.49, 2.39 mm/hr and 6.54%, respectively. Future work seeks to combine the ice scattering signal at high frequencies and this surface emissivity variation signal at low frequencies to achieve an optimal retrieval performance.

The role of low-level terrain-induced jets in rainfall variability in Tigris-Euphrates Headwaters.

Rainfall variability in the Tigris-Euphrates Headwaters is a result of interaction between topography and meteorological features at a range of spatial scales. Here, we have implemented the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, driven by NCEP/DOE R2, to better understand these interactions. Simulations were performed over a domain covering most of the Middle-East. The extended simulation period (1983-2013) enables us to study seasonality, interannual variability, spatial variability and extreme events of rainfall. Results showed that the annual cycle of precipitation produced by WRF agrees much more closely with observations than does R2. This was particularly evident during the transition months of April and October, which were further examined to study the underlying physical mechanisms. In both months, WRF improves representation of interannual variability relative to R2, with a substantially larger benefit in April. This improvement results primarily from WRF's ability to resolve two low-level terrain-induced flows in the region that are either absent or weak in NCEP/DOE: one parallel to western edge of the Zagros Mountains, and one along the East Turkish Highlands. The first shows a complete reversal in its direction during wet and dry days: when flowing southeasterly it transports moisture from the Persian Gulf to the region, and when flowing northwesterly it blocks moisture and transports it away from the region. The second is more directly related to synoptic-scale systems and carries moist, warm air from the Mediterranean and Red Seas toward the region. The combined contribution of these flows explains about 50% of interannual variability in both WRF and observations for April and October precipitation.

A land data assimilation system for sub-Saharan Africa food and water security applications.

Seasonal agricultural drought monitoring systems, which rely on satellite remote sensing and land surface models (LSMs), are important for disaster risk reduction and famine early warning. These systems require the best available weather inputs, as well as a long-term historical record to contextualize current observations. This article introduces the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System (FLDAS), a custom instance of the NASA Land Information System (LIS) framework. The FLDAS is routinely used to produce multi-model and multi-forcing estimates of hydro-climate states and fluxes over semi-arid, food insecure regions of Africa. These modeled data and derived products, like soil moisture percentiles and water availability, were designed and are currently used to complement FEWS NET's operational remotely sensed rainfall, evapotranspiration, and vegetation observations. The 30+ years of monthly outputs from the FLDAS simulations are publicly available from the NASA Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) and recommended for use in hydroclimate studies, early warning applications, and by agro-meteorological scientists in Eastern, Southern, and Western Africa.

The evolution of process-based hydrologic models: Historical challenges and the collective quest for physical realism.

The diversity in hydrologic models has historically led to great controversy on the "correct" approach to process-based hydrologic modeling, with debates centered on the adequacy of process parameterizations, data limitations and uncertainty, and computational constraints on model analysis. In this paper, we revisit key modeling challenges on requirements to (1) define suitable model equations, (2) define adequate model parameters, and (3) cope with limitations in computing power. We outline the historical modeling challenges, provide examples of modeling advances that address these challenges, and define outstanding research needs. We illustrate how modeling advances have been made by groups using models of different type and complexity, and we argue for the need to more effectively use our diversity of modeling approaches in order to advance our collective quest for physically realistic hydrologic models.

Evaluation of NU-WRF rainfall forecasts for IFloodS.

The Iowa Flood Studies (IFloodS) campaign was conducted in eastern Iowa as a pre-GPM-launch campaign from 1 May to 15 June 2013. During the campaign period, real time forecasts are conducted utilizing NASA-Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) model to support the everyday weather briefing. In this study, two sets of the NU-WRF rainfall forecasts are evaluated with Stage IV and Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE), with the objective to understand the impact of Land Surface initialization on the predicted precipitation. NU-WRF is also compared with North American Mesoscale Forecast System (NAM) 12 km forecast. In general, NU-WRF did a good job at capturing individual precipitation events. NU-WRF is also able to replicate a better rainfall spatial distribution compare with NAM. Further sensitivity tests show that the high-resolution makes a positive impact on rainfall forecast. The two sets of NU-WRF simulations produce very close rainfall characteristics. The Land surface initialization do not show significant impact on short-term rainfall forecast, and it is largely due to the soil conditions during the field campaign period.

High-resolution NU-WRF simulations of a deep convective-precipitation system during MC3E: Further improvements and comparisons between Goddard microphysics schemes and observations.

The Goddard microphysics was recently improved by adding a fourth ice class (frozen drops/hail). This new 4ICE scheme was developed and tested in the Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE) model for an intense continental squall line and a moderate, less organized continental case. Simulated peak radar reflectivity profiles were improved in intensity and shape for both cases, as were the overall reflectivity probability distributions versus observations. In this study, the new Goddard 4ICE scheme is implemented into the regional-scale NASA Unified-Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) model, modified and evaluated for the same intense squall line, which occurred during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E). NU-WRF simulated radar reflectivities, total rainfall, propagation, and convective system structures using the 4ICE scheme modified herein agree as well as or significantly better with observations than the original 4ICE and two previous 3ICE (graupel or hail) versions of the Goddard microphysics. With the modified 4ICE, the bin microphysics-based rain evaporation correction improves propagation and in conjunction with eliminating the unrealistic dry collection of ice/snow by hail can replicate the erect, narrow, and intense convective cores. Revisions to the ice supersaturation, ice number concentration formula, and snow size mapping, including a new snow breakup effect, allow the modified 4ICE to produce a stronger, better organized system, more snow, and mimic the strong aggregation signature in the radar distributions. NU-WRF original 4ICE simulated radar reflectivity distributions are consistent with and generally superior to those using the GCE due to the less restrictive domain and lateral boundaries.

Benchmarking NLDAS-2 Soil Moisture and Evapotranspiration to Separate Uncertainty Contributions.

Model benchmarking allows us to separate uncertainty in model predictions caused by model inputs from uncertainty due to model structural error. We extend this method with a "large-sample" approach (using data from multiple field sites) to measure prediction uncertainty caused by errors in (i) forcing data, (ii) model parameters, and (iii) model structure, and use it to compare the efficiency of soil moisture state and evapotranspiration flux predictions made by the four land surface models in the North American Land Data Assimilation System Phase 2 (NLDAS-2). Parameters dominated uncertainty in soil moisture estimates and forcing data dominated uncertainty in evapotranspiration estimates; however, the models themselves used only a fraction of the information available to them. This means that there is significant potential to improve all three components of the NLDAS-2 system. In particular, continued work toward refining the parameter maps and look-up tables, the forcing data measurement and processing, and also the land surface models themselves, has potential to result in improved estimates of surface mass and energy balances.