Evaluating the Effects of Precipitation and Evapotranspiration on Soil Moisture Variability Within CMIP5 Using SMAP and ERA5 Data

The effects of precipitation (Pr) and evapotranspiration (ET) on surface soil moisture (SSM) play an essential role in the land‐atmosphere system. Here we evaluate multimodel differences of these effects within the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) compared to Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) products and ECMWF Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) as references in a frequency domain. The variability of SSM, Pr, and ET within three frequency bands (1/7 ∼ 1/30 days−1, 1/30 ∼ 1/90 days−1, and 1/90 ∼ 1/365 days−1) after normalization is quantified using Fourier transform. We analyze the impact of ET and Pr on SSM variability based on a transfer function assuming that these variables form a linear time‐invariant (LTI) system. For the total effects of ET and Pr on SSM variability, the CMIP5 estimations are smaller than the reference data in the two higher frequency bands and are larger than the reference data in the lowest frequency band. Besides, the effects on SSM by Pr and ET are found to be different across the three frequency bands. In each frequency band, the variability of the factor that dominates SSM (i.e., Pr or ET) from CMIP5 is smaller than that from the references. This study identifies the spatiotemporal distribution of differences between CMIP5 models and references (SMAP and ERA5) in simulating ET and Pr effects on SSM within three frequency bands. This study provides insightful information on how soil moisture variability is affected by varying precipitation and evapotranspiration at different time scales within Earth System Models. Climate is influenced by the interactions between the land surface and atmosphere boundary, and soil moisture is a key component of these physical processes. Precipitation and evapotranspiration, as two major variables involved in these interactions, have been largely regarded as essential processes affecting soil moisture dynamics. However, Earth System Models have large uncertainties in simulating these effects. This study compares the average performance of 14 Earth System Models in capturing the effects of precipitation and evapotranspiration on surface soil moisture variability. We find that (a) soil moisture is mainly affected by precipitation at weekly to seasonal time scales and by evapotranspiration at seasonal to annual time scales; (b) compared to two largely used reference data, the total effects of precipitation and evapotranspiration on soil moisture is smaller at weekly to seasonal time scales and are larger at seasonal to annual time scale; and (c) spatially, models tend to simulate less variability of precipitation or evapotranspiration as a major control on surface soil moisture. The effects of precipitation and evapotranspiration on soil moisture variability can be analyzed in a frequency domainPrecipitation dominates weekly to seasonal variability and evapotranspiration dominates seasonal to annual variability of soil moistureEarth System Models shall be improved in simulating soil moisture temporal variabilities The effects of precipitation and evapotranspiration on soil moisture variability can be analyzed in a frequency domain Precipitation dominates weekly to seasonal variability and evapotranspiration dominates seasonal to annual variability of soil moisture Earth System Models shall be improved in simulating soil moisture temporal variabilities