A Water Balance–Based, Spatiotemporal Evaluation of Terrestrial Evapotranspiration Products across the Contiguous United States

Abstract

AbstractAccurate gridded estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) are essential to the analysis of terrestrial water budgets. In this study, ET estimates from three gridded energy balance?based products (ETEB) with independent model formations and data forcings are evaluated for their ability to capture long-term climatology and interannual variability in ET derived from a terrestrial water budget (ETWB) for 671 gauged basins across the contiguous United States. All three ETEB products have low spatial bias and accurately capture interannual variability of ETWB in the central United States, where ETEB and ancillary estimates of change in total surface water storage (?TWS) from the GRACE satellite project appear to close terrestrial water budgets. In humid regions, ETEB products exhibit higher long-term bias, and the covariability of ETEB and ETWB decreases significantly. Several factors related to either failure of ETWB, such as errors in ?TWS and precipitation, or failure of ETEB, such as treatment of snowfall and horizontal heat advection, explain some of these discrepancies. These results mirror and build on conclusions from other studies: on interannual time scales, ?TWS and error in precipitation estimates are nonnegligible uncertainties in ET estimates based on a terrestrial water budget, and this confounds their comparison to energy balance ET models. However, there is also evidence that in at least some regions, climate and landscape features may also influence the accuracy and long-term bias of ET estimates from energy balance models, and these potential errors should be considered when using these gridded products in hydrologic applications.