LIS/Noah-MPv5 PEAT simulated outputs supporting: "Peatland hydrology in Noah-MP land surface model v5.0: parameterization and evaluation over the Congo peatlands"

This archive contains daily gridded output from the NASA Land Information System (LIS) running the Noah-MP v5.0 land surface model with the peatland hydrology module activated over the Congo Cuvette Centrale peatland domain, together with the static domain/parameter input file used to run those simulations. Two parallel 16-year simulations are provided, differing only in the atmospheric forcing used to drive the model.

Common Grid Information (for all the files):

  Projection:            Equidistant cylindrical (regular lat/lon grid)
  Grid size:              91 (lat) x 121 (lon)
  Grid spacing:            0.1 deg x 0.1 deg
  Domain extent:           lat -4.5 to 4.5 deg N, lon 12.0 to 24.0 deg E
  (covers the Congo Cuvette Centrale peatland complex)

Input File:

INPUT/lis_input_Cuvette01_PeatV2.nc: LDT (Land Data Toolkit) generated domain and parameter file used as static input for both LIS/Noah-MP for both MERRA-2 and CHIRPS forced peat simulations. The variable "TEXTURE" in the NetCDF file contains soil texture classes (dimension "soiltypes", 17 classes, index 0-16). This is the LIS-modified STATSGO+FAO blended soil texture map, with a 17th class, "PEAT" (index 16, i.e. the last/17th class), added from Crezee et al. (2022).

Output Files:

•  OUTPUT/MERRA2/LIS_NoahMP5_PEAT_MERRA2_2010_2025.nc: Full atmospheric forcing (precipitation and meteorology)  from MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2) reanalysis. 

            Experiment = "NoahMP_Peat=1,MER"

•  OUTPUT/CHIRPS/LIS_NoahMP5_PEAT_CHIRPS_2010_2025.nc: Precipitation from CHIRPS (Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data), other meteorological forcing from MERRA-2.

             Experiment = "NoahMP_Peat=1,CH"

In both files, "Peat=1" indicates the peatland physics module was turned on for the full simulation. Each file was built by concatenating the model's native daily history files (LIS_HIST_*.d01.nc) along the time dimension and reformatting the native north_south/east_west grid dimensions to lat/lon.

Output Time Period

Daily time steps, 2010-01-01 through 2025-12-31 (5844 days, no gaps). Coordinate "time": days since 2010-01-01 00:00:00, calendar = standard. Each value is a daily average ("tavg" variables) or an instantaneous daily snapshot ("inst" variables), consistent with LIS/Noah-MP naming conventions.

Missing value

-9999.0 (attribute "missing_value" on every variable and as a global attribute).

Output Data Variables

1) Evap_tavg - Total evapotranspiration
     Unit: kg m-2 s-1  
     Convert to mm/day:  Evap_tavg * 86400

2) Qs_tavg - Surface runoff
     Units in file: kg m-2 s-1
     Convert to mm/day:  Qs_tavg * 86400

3) Qsb_tavg - Subsurface runoff
     Units in file: kg m-2 s-1
     Convert to mm/day:  Qsb_tavg * 86400

4) SoilMoist_tavg - Volumetric soil moisture content
     Units: m3 m-3 (already a fraction/ratio; no unit conversion needed)
     Dimensions: (time, SoilMoist_profiles, lat, lon)
     The SoilMoist_profiles dimension (length 4) indexes the four Noah-MP soil layers, of thickness 10, 30, 60, 100 cm from the surface downward (global attribute SOIL_LAYER_THICKNESSES; cumulative depths 10, 40, 100, 200 cm), i.e. index        0 = 0-10 cm, index 1 =10-40 cm, index 2 = 40-100 cm, index 3 = 100-200 cm.

5) WaterTableD_tavg - Water table depth
     Units: m
     Sign convention in file: positive downward, i.e. depth of the water table below the peat/land surface.
     To express as a peatland water level relative to the surface (positive = water level above the surface, e.g. during inundation; negative = water table below the surface), take the negative:
      PeatWaterLevel_m = -1 * WaterTableD_tavg

6) TWS_tavg - Terrestrial water storage
     Units: mm (already in water-equivalent depth; no conversion needed)

7) Soiltype_inst - Soil type class
     Units: - (dimensionless categorical index)
     Static in time (identical at every time step); retained with a time dimension only for structural consistency with the other variables.

Data citation

These model outputs are used in the study of "Peatland hydrology in Noah-MP land surface model v5.0: parameterization and evaluation over the Congo peatlands" submitted to Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
While using these outputs, please cite both the Zenodo record and the associated manuscript once published.