A global long-term daily reanalysis of reference evapotranspiration for drought and food-security monitoring

Mike Hobbins; Timen Jansma; Daniel P Sarmiento; Amy McNally; Tamuka Magadzire; Harikishan Jayanthi; Will Turner; Andrew Hoell; Greg Husak; Gabriel Senay; Olena Boiko; Michael Budde; Pamella Mogane; Candida F Dewes

doi:10.1038/s41597-023-02648-4

A global long-term daily reanalysis of reference evapotranspiration for drought and food-security monitoring

Sci Data. 2023 Oct 27;10(1):746. doi: 10.1038/s41597-023-02648-4.

Authors

Mike Hobbins^{1

2}, Timen Jansma³, Daniel P Sarmiento^{4

5}, Amy McNally^{4

5}, Tamuka Magadzire^{6

7}, Harikishan Jayanthi⁸, Will Turner⁶, Andrew Hoell⁹, Greg Husak⁶, Gabriel Senay^{10

11}, Olena Boiko¹², Michael Budde¹⁰, Pamella Mogane^{6

7}, Candida F Dewes^{13

14}

Affiliations

¹ University of Colorado, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, USA. mike.hobbins@noaa.gov.
² National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA. mike.hobbins@noaa.gov.
³ University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
⁴ National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
⁵ Science Application International Corporation, Reston, VA, USA.
⁶ University of California Santa Barbara, Department of Geography, Climate Hazards Center, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
⁷ Famine Early Warning Systems Network, Washington, D.C., USA.
⁸ ASRC Federal Data Solutions, contractor to the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, work performed under USGS contract 140G0119C0001, EROS Center, Sioux Falls, SD, USA.
⁹ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA.
¹⁰ United States Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, Sioux Falls, SD, USA.
¹¹ University of Colorado-North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, Boulder, CO, USA.
¹² KBR, Inc. under contract to the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (140G0121D0001), EROS Center, Sioux Falls, SD, USA.
¹³ University of Colorado, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, USA.
¹⁴ University of Colorado, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO, USA.

Abstract

NOAA has developed a global reference evapotranspiration (ET₀) reanalysis using the UN Food and Agriculture Organization formulation (FAO-56) of the Penman-Monteith equation forced by MERRA phase 2 (MERRA2) meteorological and radiative drivers. The NOAA ET₀ reanalysis is provided daily from January 1, 1980 to the near-present at a resolution of 0.5° latitude × 0.625° longitude. The reanalysis is verified against station data across southern Africa, a region presenting both significant challenges regarding hydroclimatic variability and observational quantity and quality and significant potential benefits to food-insecure populations. These data are generated from observations from the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) network. We further verified globally against spatially distributed ET₀ derived from two reanalyses-the Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) and Princeton Global Forcing (PGF)-and these verifications produced similar results, yet demonstrated wide regional and seasonal differences. We also present cases that verify the operational applicability of the reanalysis in long-established drought, famine, crop- and pastoral-stress metrics, and in predictability assessments of drought forecasts.

Publication types

Dataset

MeSH terms

Agriculture
Climate Change
Crops, Agricultural*
Droughts*
Plant Transpiration

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding