Hydrological Storage Length Scales Represented by Remote Sensing Estimates of Soil Moisture and Precipitation

The soil water content profile is often well correlated with the soil moisture state near the surface. They share mutual information such that analysis of surface‐only soil moisture is, at times and in conjunction with precipitation information, reflective of deeper soil fluxes and dynamics. This study examines the characteristic length scale, or effective depth Δz, of a simple active hydrological control volume. The volume is described only by precipitation inputs and soil water dynamics evident in surface‐only soil moisture observations. To proceed, first an observation‐based technique is presented to estimate the soil moisture loss function based on analysis of soil moisture dry‐downs and its successive negative increments. Then, the length scale Δz is obtained via an optimization process wherein the root‐mean‐squared (RMS) differences between surface soil moisture observations and its predictions based on water balance are minimized. The process is entirely observation‐driven. The surface soil moisture estimates are obtained from the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission and precipitation from the gauge‐corrected Climate Prediction Center daily global precipitation product. The length scale Δz exhibits a clear east‐west gradient across the contiguous United States (CONUS), such that large Δz depths (>200 mm) are estimated in wetter regions with larger mean precipitation. The median Δz across CONUS is 135 mm. The spatial variance of Δz is predominantly explained and influenced by precipitation characteristics. Soil properties, especially texture in the form of sand fraction, as well as the mean soil moisture state have a lesser influence on the length scale. Key Points Surface soil moisture dynamic often reflects deeper soil water content characteristics By performing water balance closure using only soil moisture and precipitation a length scale can be obtained Estimates of the length scale show an east‐west gradient across US with larger values in wetter regions