Absolute versus temporal anomaly and percent of saturation soil moisture spatial variability for six networks worldwide

The analysis of the spatial-temporal variability of soil moisture can be carried out considering the absolute (original) soil moisture values or relative values, such as the percent of saturation or temporal anomalies. Over large areas, soil moisture data measured at different sites can be characterized by large differences in their minimum, mean, and maximum absolute values, even though in relative terms their temporal patterns are very similar. In these cases, the analysis considering absolute compared with percent of saturation or temporal anomaly soil moisture values can provide very different results with significant consequences for their use in hydrological applications and climate science. In this study, in situ observations from six soil moisture networks in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Australia, and United States are collected and analyzed to investigate the spatial soil moisture variability over large areas (250-150,000 km(2)). Specifically, the statistical and temporal stability analyses of soil moisture have been carried out for absolute, temporal anomaly, and percent of saturation values (using two different formulations for temporal anomalies). The results highlight that the spatial variability of the soil moisture dynamic (i.e., temporal anomalies) is significantly lower than that of the absolute soil moisture values. The spatial variance of the time-invariant component (temporal mean of each site) is the predominant contribution to the total spatial variance of absolute soil moisture data. Moreover, half of the networks show a minimum in the spatial variability for intermediate conditions when the temporal anomalies are considered, in contrast with the widely recognized behavior of absolute soil moisture data. The analyses with percent saturation data show qualitatively similar results as those for the temporal anomalies because of the applied normalization which reduces spatial variability induced by differences in mean absolute soil moisture only. Overall, we find that the analysis of the spatial-temporal variability of absolute soil moisture does not apply to temporal anomalies or percent of saturation values.