Datasets

Description:

Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) land surface model output driven by the NLDAS, Phase 2. A semi-distributed, grid-based hydrologic model estimating surface and subsurface fluxes and stores. The VIC model was developed at the University of Washington and Princeton University as a macroscale, semi-distributed, grid-based, hydrologic model (Liang and others, 1994; Wood and others, 1997). The full water and energy balance modes of VIC were used for NLDAS-2. VIC uses three soil layers, with thicknesses that vary spatially. The root zone depends on the vegetation type and its root distribution, and can span all three soil layers. The VIC model includes a two-layer energy balance snow model (Cherkauer and others, 2003). Details about the NLDAS-2 configuration of the VIC LSM can be found in Xia and others (2012). The version of the VIC model for the NLDAS-2 VIC data available from the NASA GES DISC is VIC-4.0.3; this version of the VIC model is the same as used in Sheffield and others (2003).

Citation:

Xia, Y., Mitchell, K., Ek, M., Sheffield, J., Cosgrove, B., Wood, E., Luo, L., Alonge, C., Wei, H., Meng, J., Livneh, B., Lettenmaier, D., Koren, V., Duan, Q., Mo, K., Fan, Y., Mocko, D., 2012, Continental-scale water and energy flux analysis and validation for the North American Land Data Assimilation System project phase 2 (NLDAS-2): 1. Intercomparison and application of model products, Journal of Geophysical Research, v 117, D03109, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016048