1. Evaluation of a Land-surface Model (Noah) for Semi-arid Environments
Terri S. Hogue, Luis Bastidas, Hoshin Gupta, and Soroosh Sorooshian

3. Study Sites
Lucky Hills (Desert Shrub)
Kendall (Grassland)

4. Precipitation Patterns

5. Precipitation Stats

6. Testing Schemes
Split Sample
Proxy Basin

7. Kendall Objective Functions
Normalized Values (to )

8. Kendall Split Sample Results

9. Proxy-Basin Results – Kendall w/LHills

10. Differential Split Sample

11. Differential Split Sample Results

12. Kendall – 10-day monsoon period (1997-00 pars)
OBSERVED
CALIBRATED
DEFAULT
Sensible Heat
Latent Heat
Ground Heat
Ground Temp
W/m2 °C

13. Kendall – 10-day monsoon period (1999 pars)
OBSERVED
CALIBRATED
DEFAULT
Sensible Heat
Latent Heat
Ground Heat
Ground Temp
W/m2 °C

14. Preliminary Conclusions
The developed methods provide a rigorous framework for comparisons of the behavior of land-surface models across various biomes:
Parameter sets from nearly all calibration periods show improved
performance over default simulations
• Longer calibration-period parameter sets do not capture seasonal /annual variability
There is a need for both “wet” and “dry” periods. The increase in
latent heat during short climatic events is not modeled well.
• Proxy site parameters results in similar performance for most periods

16. Differential Split Sample Results

17. Lucky Hills Split Sample Results

18. Lucky Hills Objective Functions
Normalized Values (to )