Use of Satellite-Based Precipitation Observation in Improving the Parameterization of Canopy Hydrological Processes in Land Surface Models

Precipitation exhibits significant spatial variability at scales much smaller than the typical size of climate model grid cells. Neglecting such subgrid-scale variability in climate models causes unrealistic representation of land–atmosphere flux exchanges. It is especially problematic over densely vegetated land. This paper addresses this issue by incorporating satellite-based precipitation observations into the representation of canopy interception processes in land surface models. Rainfall data derived from passive microwave (PM) observations are used to obtain realistic estimates of 1) conditional mean rain rates, which together with the modeled rain rate are used to estimate the rainfall coverage fraction at each model grid cell in this study, and 2) the probability density function (pdf) of rain rates within the rain-covered areas. Both of these properties significantly impact the land–atmosphere water vapor exchanges. Based on the above information, a statistical–dynamical approach is taken to incorporate the representation of precipitation subgrid variability into canopy interception processes in land surface models. The results reveal that incorporation of precipitation subgrid variability significantly alters the partitioning between runoff and total evapotranspiration as well as the partitioning among the three components of evapotranspiration (i.e., canopy interception loss, ground evaporation, and plant transpiration). This further influences soil water, surface temperature, and surface heat fluxes. It is shown that the choice of the rain-rate pdf within rain-covered areas has an effect on the model simulation of land–atmosphere flux exchanges. This study demonstrates that land surface and climate models can substantially benefit from the fine-resolution remotely sensed rainfall observations.