Analysis of global evapotranspiration datasets reveal hotspots of low and high agreement

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of the water cycle and varies widely across the globe. With increasing efforts to create multi-year global gridded products using a multitude of approaches, there is a need to understand where datasets agree and disagree to pinpoint where our collective understanding may fall short. We processed and homogenized fourteen gridded datasets from 2000-2019 to find hotspots of low and high dataset agreement world-wide as well as over different biomes, land cover, IPCC reference regions, elevation classes and ET intensity classes. The use of standardized quartile ranges and distribution testing established two complementary angles of collective agreement. We identified hotspots with low agreement, such as cold dry regions, as well as regions with high agreement. In regions with high agreement, we identified product-specific outliers. These regions can be of high interest for developers and inform users on product selection.