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WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH, VOL. 42, W03201, doi:10.1029/2005WR004628, 2006

Climate model biases in seasonality of continental water storage revealed by satellite gravimetry

Sean Claude Swenson

Department of Physics and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA


P. C. D. Milly

U.S. Geological Survey, Princeton, New Jersey, USA


Abstract

Satellite gravimetric observations of monthly changes in continental water storage are compared with outputs from five climate models. All models qualitatively reproduce the global pattern of annual storage amplitude, and the seasonal cycle of global average storage is reproduced well, consistent with earlier studies. However, global average agreements mask systematic model biases in low latitudes. Seasonal extrema of low-latitude, hemispheric storage generally occur too early in the models, and model-specific errors in amplitude of the low-latitude annual variations are substantial. These errors are potentially explicable in terms of neglected or suboptimally parameterized water stores in the land models and precipitation biases in the climate models.

Received 30 September 2005; accepted 17 January 2006; published 1 March 2006.

Keywords: climate model; gravity; model evaluation; satellite; storage.

Index Terms: 1212 Geodesy and Gravity: Earth's interior: composition and state (7207, 7208, 8105, 8124); 1217 Geodesy and Gravity: Time variable gravity (7223, 7230); 1626 Global Change: Global climate models (3337, 4928).

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Citation: Swenson, S. C., and P. C. D. Milly (2006), Climate model biases in seasonality of continental water storage revealed by satellite gravimetry, Water Resour. Res., 42, W03201, doi:10.1029/2005WR004628.