NLDAS Mosaic Land Surface Model Hourly Estimates at 0.125 Degree Resolution

Thirty-eight fields from the Mosaic land-surface model simulate energy and water balances for the North American continent. Hourly data spans from January 1979 to the present on a 1/8th-degree grid. The model was developed by Koster and Suarez and is maintained by NASA's GES DISC.

Use Cases

• Analyze soil moisture dynamics in the three model layers (10, 30, 160 cm) to assess drought conditions and agricultural water stress.
• Model surface energy fluxes and evapotranspiration using the tile-based approach that accounts for subgrid vegetation variability.
• Validate regional climate models by comparing simulated land surface states, such as soil temperature and snow cover, against this benchmark dataset.
• Study long-term hydrological trends from 1979 to present using the consistent hourly temporal resolution.

Strengths

• Hourly temporal resolution provides detailed diurnal cycle information for land-atmosphere interactions.
• Data record spans over 40 years, from January 1979 to present, enabling long-term trend analysis.
• Model uses a tile approach with up to 10 vegetation types per grid cell to represent subgrid variability.

Limitations

• Spatial resolution of 0.125 degrees (~14 km) may be too coarse for local-scale watershed or field studies.
• Model configuration uses fixed soil layer depths and a constant rooting depth, which may not capture local soil heterogeneity.
• The 5% vegetation cover cutoff ignores minor land cover classes within each grid cell.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).

Collection Method

Simulated from the Mosaic land-surface model as part of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2).

Time Range

January 1979 to present.

Freshness

Updated to the present (near real-time).

Geography

North America.