{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T15:31:43Z","timestamp":1780068703877,"version":"3.54.0"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,12]],"date-time":"2019-04-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1555027200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000104","name":"National Aeronautics and Space Administration","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["NNH15ZDA001N-SERVIR"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["NNH15ZDA001N-SERVIR"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000104","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>An evapotranspiration (ET) ensemble composed of 36 land surface model (LSM) experiments and four diagnostic datasets (GLEAM, ALEXI, MOD16, and FLUXNET) is used to investigate uncertainties in ET estimate over five climate regions in West Africa. Diagnostic ET datasets show lower uncertainty estimates and smaller seasonal variations than the LSM-based ET values, particularly in the humid climate regions. Overall, the impact of the choice of LSMs and meteorological forcing datasets on the modeled ET rates increases from north to south. The LSM formulations and parameters have the largest impact on ET in humid regions, contributing to 90% of the ET uncertainty estimates. Precipitation contributes to the ET uncertainty primarily in arid regions. The LSM-based ET estimates are sensitive to the uncertainty of net radiation in arid region and precipitation in humid region. This study serves as support for better determining water availability for agriculture and livelihoods in Africa with earth observations and land surface models.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs11080892","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,12]],"date-time":"2019-04-12T12:55:04Z","timestamp":1555073704000},"page":"892","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":33,"title":["Uncertainties in Evapotranspiration Estimates over West Africa"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6330-1834","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hahn Chul","family":"Jung","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA"},{"name":"Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, MD 20706, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Augusto","family":"Getirana","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA"},{"name":"Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kristi R.","family":"Arsenault","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA"},{"name":"Science Applications International Corporation, McLean, VA 22102, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4651-0079","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thomas R.H.","family":"Holmes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7094-7599","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Amy","family":"McNally","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA"},{"name":"Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"24809","DOI":"10.1029\/2000JD900327","article-title":"A catchment based approach to modeling land surface processes in a general circulation model: 1. Model structure","volume":"105","author":"Koster","year":"2000","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8196","DOI":"10.1029\/2018WR023469","article-title":"Global investigation of soil moisture and latent heat flux coupling strength","volume":"54","author":"Lei","year":"2018","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"D03105","DOI":"10.1029\/2003JD003556","article-title":"Role of land surface processes in monsoon development: East Asia and West Africa","volume":"109","author":"Xue","year":"2004","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1865","DOI":"10.1175\/2009BAMS2786.1","article-title":"The AMMA Land Surface Model Intercomparison Project","volume":"90","author":"Boone","year":"2009","journal-title":"Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3173","DOI":"10.1175\/JCLI3452.1","article-title":"Investigation of hydrological variability in West Africa using land surface models","volume":"18","author":"Li","year":"2005","journal-title":"J. Clim."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3993","DOI":"10.1002\/hyp.8393","article-title":"Multi-model, multi-sensor estimates of global evapotranspiration: Climatology, uncertainties and trends","volume":"25","author":"Vinukollu","year":"2011","journal-title":"Hydrol. Process."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3132","DOI":"10.1002\/joc.4198","article-title":"Multi-model and multi-sesnor estimates of evapotranspiration over the Volta Basin, West Africa","volume":"35","author":"Ferreira","year":"2015","journal-title":"Int. J. Climatol."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"193","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-18-193-2014","article-title":"Comparison of different evaporation estimates over the African continent","volume":"18","author":"Trambauer","year":"2014","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"McNally, A., Husak, G.J., Brown, M., Carroll, M., Funk, C., Yatheendradas, S., Arsenault, K., Peters-Lidard, C., and Verdin, J.P. (2015). Calculating Crop Water Requirement Satisfaction in the West Africa Sahel with Remotely Sensed Soil Moisture. J. Hydrometeorol.","DOI":"10.1175\/JHM-D-14-0049.1"},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"187","DOI":"10.2151\/jmsj.85A.187","article-title":"Sensitivity of land surface simulations to model physics, land characteristics, and forcings at four CEOP sites","volume":"85","author":"Kato","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Meteorol. Soc. Jpn."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"L06402","DOI":"10.1029\/2010GL046230","article-title":"Evaluation of global observations-based evapotranspiration datasets and IPCC AR4 simulations","volume":"38","author":"Mueller","year":"2011","journal-title":"Geophys. Res. Lett."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3707","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-17-3707-2013","article-title":"Benchmark products for land evapotranspiration: LandFlux-EVAL multi-data set synthesis","volume":"17","author":"Mueller","year":"2013","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"256","DOI":"10.1016\/j.agrformet.2018.01.022","article-title":"Stand-alone uncertainty characterization of GLEAM, GLDAS and MOD16 evapotranspiration products using an extended triple collocation approach","volume":"252","author":"Khan","year":"2018","journal-title":"Agric. For. Meteorol."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2891","DOI":"10.1002\/2017WR021682","article-title":"Intercomparison and uncertainty assessment of nine evapotranspiration estimates over South America","volume":"54","author":"Sorensson","year":"2018","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"37","DOI":"10.1175\/2009WAF2222250.1","article-title":"An Intercomparison of Simulated Rainfall and Evapotranspiration Associated with a Mesoscale Convective System over West Africa","volume":"25","author":"Guichard","year":"2010","journal-title":"Weather Forecast."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"45","DOI":"10.1002\/asl.309","article-title":"Mesoscale water cycle within the West African Monsoon","volume":"12","author":"Peugeot","year":"2011","journal-title":"Atmos. Sci. Lett."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2736","DOI":"10.3390\/s8042736","article-title":"Intercomparison of Evapotranspiration Over the Savannah Volta Basin in West Africa Using Remote Sensing Data","volume":"8","author":"Donoghue","year":"2008","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Getirana, A., Boone, A., and Peugeot, C. (2014). Evaluating LSM-based water budgets over a West African basin assisted with a river routing scheme. J. Hydrometeorol.","DOI":"10.1175\/JHM-D-14-0012.1"},{"key":"ref_19","first-page":"9","article-title":"AMMA Land Surface Model Intercomparison Project Phase 2, (ALMIP-2)","volume":"9","author":"Boone","year":"2009","journal-title":"Gewex News"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Getirana, A., Boone, A., and Peugeot, C. (2017). Streamflows over a West African basin from the ALMIP-2 model ensemble. J. Hydrometeorol.","DOI":"10.1175\/JHM-D-16-0233.1"},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"W05549","DOI":"10.1029\/2009WR008856","article-title":"Land water storage variability over West Africa estimated by Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and land surface models","volume":"47","author":"Grippa","year":"2011","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"437","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-15-437-2011","article-title":"Evaluation of rainfall retrievals from SEVIRI reflectances over West Africa using TRMM-PR and CMORPH","volume":"15","author":"Wolters","year":"2011","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"231","DOI":"10.1007\/s00382-009-0613-9","article-title":"Multiyear simulation of the African climate using a regional climate model (RegCM3) with the high resolution ERA-interim reanalysis","volume":"35","author":"Sylla","year":"2010","journal-title":"Clim. Dynam."},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.1016\/j.gloplacha.2008.05.004","article-title":"A climate model-based review of drought in the Sahel: Desertification, the re-greening and climate change","volume":"64","author":"Giannini","year":"2008","journal-title":"Glob. Planet. Chang."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"L24407","DOI":"10.1029\/2010GL046008","article-title":"A global map of uncertainties in satellite-based precipitation measurements","volume":"37","author":"Tian","year":"2010","journal-title":"Geophys. Res. Lett."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"386","DOI":"10.1002\/2013WR014194","article-title":"Comparison of prognostic and diagnostic surface flux modeling approaches over the Nile River basin","volume":"50","author":"Yilmaz","year":"2014","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_27","unstructured":"UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) (1997). World Atlas of Desertification, UNEP."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"67","DOI":"10.1016\/j.agee.2008.01.014","article-title":"Climate Change Mitigation: A Spatial Analysis of Global Land Suitability for Clean Development Mechanism Afforestation and Reforestation","volume":"126","author":"Zomer","year":"2008","journal-title":"Agric. Ecosyst. Environ."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1402","DOI":"10.1016\/j.envsoft.2005.07.004","article-title":"LIS\u2014An interoperable framework for high resolution land surface modeling","volume":"21","author":"Kumar","year":"2006","journal-title":"Environ. Model. Softw."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7251","DOI":"10.1029\/95JD02165","article-title":"Modeling of land-surface evaporation by four schemes and comparison with FIFE observations","volume":"101","author":"Chen","year":"1996","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8851","DOI":"10.1029\/2002JD003296","article-title":"Implementation of Noah land surface model advances in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction operational Mesoscale Eta Model","volume":"108","author":"Ek","year":"2003","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Niu, G.-Y., Yang, Z.-L., Mitchell, K.E., Chen, F., Ek, M.B., Barlage, M., Longuevergne, L., Kumar, A., Manning, K., and Niyogi, D. (2011). The community Noah land surface model with multiparam-eterization options (Noah-MP): 1. Model description and evaluation with local-scale measurements. J. Geophys. Res.","DOI":"10.1029\/2010JD015139"},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1002\/2013JD020792","article-title":"Hydrological evaluation of the Noah-MP land surface model for the Mississippi River Basin","volume":"119","author":"Cai","year":"2014","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res. Atmos."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"14415","DOI":"10.1029\/94JD00483","article-title":"A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models","volume":"99","author":"Liang","year":"1994","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1138","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1100217","article-title":"Regions of strong coupling between soil moisture and precipitation","volume":"305","author":"Koster","year":"2004","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6322","DOI":"10.1175\/JCLI-D-10-05033.1","article-title":"Assessment and enhancement of MERRA land surface hydrology estimates","volume":"24","author":"Reichle","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Clim."},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Martens, B., Miralles, D.G., Lievens, H., van der Schalie, R., de Jeu, R.A.M., Fern\u00e1ndez-Prieto, D., Beck, H.E., Dorigo, W.A., and Verhoest, N.E.C. (2016). GLEAM v3.0: Satellite-based land evaporation and root-zone soil moisture. Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss.","DOI":"10.5194\/gmd-2016-162"},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hain, C.R., and Anderson, M.C. (2017). Estimating Morning Change in Land Surface Temperature from MODIS Day\/Night Land Surface Temperature: Applications for Surface Energy Balance Modeling. Geophys. Res. Lett.","DOI":"10.1002\/2017GL074952"},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1781","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2011.02.019","article-title":"Improvements to a MODIS global terrestrial evapotranspiration algorithm","volume":"115","author":"Mu","year":"2011","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"G00J07","DOI":"10.1029\/2010JG001566","article-title":"Global patterns of land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide, latent heat, and sensible heat derived from eddy covariance, satellite, and meteorological observations","volume":"116","author":"Jung","year":"2011","journal-title":"J. Geophys. Res."},{"key":"ref_41","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"W07525","DOI":"10.1029\/2011WR011291","article-title":"Drought indicators based on model-assimilated gravity recovery and climate experiment (GRACE) terrestrial water storage observations","volume":"48","author":"Houborg","year":"2012","journal-title":"Water Resour. Res."},{"key":"ref_42","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Getirana, A., Kumar, S., Girotto, M., and Rodell, M. (2017). Rivers and floodplains as key components of global terrestrial water storage variability. Geophys. Res. Lett., 44.","DOI":"10.1002\/2017GL074684"},{"key":"ref_43","first-page":"120","article-title":"Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil, and grass","volume":"193","author":"Penman","year":"1948","journal-title":"Proc. R. Soc. Lond."},{"key":"ref_44","unstructured":"Monteith, J.L. (1965). Evaporation and environment. Proceedings of the 19th Symposium of the Society for Experimental Biology, Cambridge University Press."},{"key":"ref_45","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"168","DOI":"10.1016\/j.rse.2009.08.016","article-title":"MODIS Collection 5 global land cover: Algorithm refinements and characterization of new datasets","volume":"114","author":"Friedl","year":"2010","journal-title":"Remote Sens. Environ."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1331","DOI":"10.1080\/014311600210209","article-title":"Global land cover classification at 1 km spatial resolution using a classification tree approach","volume":"21","author":"Hansen","year":"2000","journal-title":"Int. J. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_47","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"381","DOI":"10.1175\/BAMS-85-3-381","article-title":"The Global Land Data Assimilation System","volume":"85","author":"Rodell","year":"2004","journal-title":"Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc."},{"key":"ref_48","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1643","DOI":"10.1175\/JCLI-D-16-0570.1","article-title":"Land Surface Precipitation in MERRA2","volume":"30","author":"Reichle","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Clim."},{"key":"ref_49","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3088","DOI":"10.1175\/JCLI3790.1","article-title":"Development of a 50-year high-resolution global dataset of meteorological forcings for land surface modeling","volume":"19","author":"Sheffield","year":"2006","journal-title":"J. Clim."},{"key":"ref_50","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"38","DOI":"10.1175\/JHM560.1","article-title":"The TRMM multisatellite precipitation analysis (TCMA): Quasi-global, multiyear, combined-sensor precipitation estimates at fine scales","volume":"8","author":"Huffman","year":"2007","journal-title":"J. Hydrometeorol."},{"key":"ref_51","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"150066","DOI":"10.1038\/sdata.2015.66","article-title":"The climate hazards infrared precipitation with stations\u2014A new environmental record for monitoring extremes","volume":"2","author":"Funk","year":"2015","journal-title":"Sci. Data"},{"key":"ref_52","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"81","DOI":"10.1175\/1520-0493(1972)100<0081:OTAOSH>2.3.CO;2","article-title":"On the assessment of surface heat flux and evaporation using large-scale parameters","volume":"100","author":"Priestly","year":"1972","journal-title":"Mon. Weather Rev."},{"key":"ref_53","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"589","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-21-589-2017","article-title":"MSWEP: 3-hourly 0.25\u00b0 global gridded precipitation (1979\u20132015) by merging gauge, satellite, and reanalysis data","volume":"21","author":"Beck","year":"2017","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_54","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1873","DOI":"10.5194\/gmd-11-1873-2018","article-title":"On the importance of multiple-component evaluation of spatial patterns for optimization of earth system models","volume":"11","author":"Koch","year":"2018","journal-title":"Geosci. Model Dev."},{"key":"ref_55","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1299","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-22-1299-2018","article-title":"Combining satellite data and appropriate objective functions for improved spatial pattern performance of a distributed hydrologic model","volume":"22","author":"Demirel","year":"2018","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."},{"key":"ref_56","first-page":"123","article-title":"Data assimilation of satellite-based actual evapotranspiration in a distributed hydrological model of a controlled water system","volume":"57","author":"Hartato","year":"2017","journal-title":"Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf."},{"key":"ref_57","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kumar, S.V., Wang, S., Mocko, D.M., Peters-Lidard, C.D., and Xia, Y. (2017). Similarity assessment of land surface model outputs in the North American Land Data Assimilation System. Water Resour. Res., 53.","DOI":"10.1002\/2017WR020635"},{"key":"ref_58","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2637","DOI":"10.5194\/hess-21-2637-2017","article-title":"Role of forcing uncertainty and background model error characterization in snow data assimilation","volume":"21","author":"Kumar","year":"2017","journal-title":"Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci."}],"container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/11\/8\/892\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T12:44:52Z","timestamp":1760186692000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/11\/8\/892"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,12]]},"references-count":58,"journal-issue":{"issue":"8","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,4]]}},"alternative-id":["rs11080892"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/rs11080892","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-4292"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-4292","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,12]]}}}