Evaluation of Noah-LSM for soil hydrology parameters in the Indian summer monsoon conditions

The micrometeorological observations, collected over a station in Ranchi (23°45′N, 85°30′E) which is under the monsoon trough region of India, were used in the Noah-LSM (NCEP, OSU, Air Force and Office of Hydrology Land Surface Model) to investigate the model performance in wet (2009 and 2011) and dry (2010) conditions during the south-west summer monsoon season. With this analysis, it is seen that the Noah-LSM has simulated the diurnal cycle of heat fluxes (sensible and ground) reasonably. The simulated heat fluxes were compared with its direct measurements by sonic anemometer and soil heat flux plate. The net radiation and sensible heat flux are simulated well by the model, but the simulation of ground heat flux was found to be poor in both dry as well as wet conditions. The soil temperature simulations were also found to be poor in 0–5- and 5–10-cm layers compared to other deeper layers. The observations were also correlated with the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) data. The correlation between the observations and ground heat flux was better in MERRA dataset than that of the Noah-LSM simulation.