TY - JOUR
T1 - Continental Hydrologic Intercomparison Project, Phase 1
T2 - A Large-Scale Hydrologic Model Comparison Over the Continental United States
AU - Tijerina, Danielle
AU - Condon, Laura
AU - FitzGerald, Katelyn
AU - Dugger, Aubrey
AU - O’Neill, Mary Michael
AU - Sampson, Kevin
AU - Gochis, David
AU - Maxwell, Reed
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Biological and Environmental Sciences IDEAS project and the U.S. National Science Foundation, Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Award CSSI: 1835903. The authors acknowledge high‐performance computing support from Cheyenne ( doi:10.5065/D6RX99HX ) provided by NCAR's Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Additional funding was provided from the American Association of University Women, Selected Professions Fellowship.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. The Authors.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - High-resolution, coupled, process-based hydrology models, in which subsurface, land-surface, and energy budget processes are represented, have been applied at the basin-scale to ask a wide range of water science questions. Recently, these models have been developed at continental scales with applications in operational flood forecasting, hydrologic prediction, and process representation. As use of large-scale model configurations increases, it is exceedingly important to have a common method for performance evaluation and validation, particularly given challenges associated with accurately representing large domains. Here, we present phase 1 of a comparison project for continental-scale, high-resolution, processed-based hydrologic models entitled the Continental Hydrologic Intercomparison Project (CHIP). The first phase of CHIP is based on past Earth System Model intercomparisons and comprised of a two-model proof of concept comparing the ParFlow-CONUS hydrologic model, version 1.0 and a NOAA US National Water Model configuration of WRF-Hydro, version 1.2. The objectives of CHIP phase 1 are: (a) describe model physics and components, (b) design an experiment to ensure a fair comparison, and (b) assess simulated streamflow with observations to better understand model bias. To our knowledge, this is the first comparison of continental-scale, high-resolution, physics-based models which incorporate lateral subsurface flow. This model intercomparison is an initial step toward a continued effort to unravel process, parameter, and formulation differences in current large-scale hydrologic models and to engage the hydrology community in improving hydrology model configuration and process representation.
AB - High-resolution, coupled, process-based hydrology models, in which subsurface, land-surface, and energy budget processes are represented, have been applied at the basin-scale to ask a wide range of water science questions. Recently, these models have been developed at continental scales with applications in operational flood forecasting, hydrologic prediction, and process representation. As use of large-scale model configurations increases, it is exceedingly important to have a common method for performance evaluation and validation, particularly given challenges associated with accurately representing large domains. Here, we present phase 1 of a comparison project for continental-scale, high-resolution, processed-based hydrologic models entitled the Continental Hydrologic Intercomparison Project (CHIP). The first phase of CHIP is based on past Earth System Model intercomparisons and comprised of a two-model proof of concept comparing the ParFlow-CONUS hydrologic model, version 1.0 and a NOAA US National Water Model configuration of WRF-Hydro, version 1.2. The objectives of CHIP phase 1 are: (a) describe model physics and components, (b) design an experiment to ensure a fair comparison, and (b) assess simulated streamflow with observations to better understand model bias. To our knowledge, this is the first comparison of continental-scale, high-resolution, physics-based models which incorporate lateral subsurface flow. This model intercomparison is an initial step toward a continued effort to unravel process, parameter, and formulation differences in current large-scale hydrologic models and to engage the hydrology community in improving hydrology model configuration and process representation.
KW - continental-scale model
KW - hydrologic modeling
KW - integrated model
KW - model intercomparison
KW - streamflow
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U2 - 10.1029/2020WR028931
DO - 10.1029/2020WR028931
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85111389573
SN - 0043-1397
VL - 57
JO - Water Resources Research
JF - Water Resources Research
IS - 7
M1 - e2020WR028931
ER -