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Add spatially heterogeneous soil colour maps for NoahMP (based on feature/monan-757-NF)#19

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mpaiao wants to merge 9 commits intomonanadmin:feature/monan-757-NFfrom
mpaiao:757nf-plus-soil-colour
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Add spatially heterogeneous soil colour maps for NoahMP (based on feature/monan-757-NF)#19
mpaiao wants to merge 9 commits intomonanadmin:feature/monan-757-NFfrom
mpaiao:757nf-plus-soil-colour

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@mpaiao mpaiao commented Jan 5, 2026

Pull Request Description

This pull request supersedes PR #18 as it is based on branch feature/monan-757-NF.

Updates in this pull request include (1) replacement of the original soil colour categories from NoahMP with those from CLM-5 and (2) soil colour initialisation in NoahMP based on input maps. These changes addresses the issue that native NoahMP simulations have too little variation in reflectivity across sparsely vegetated regions known to have marked variation in albedo (e.g., Sahara, Namibian desert).

Most changes follow the steps to initialise soil texture in NoahMP, and were needed to ensure each grid cell sets the reflectivity parameter based on the input data. This pull request does not provide any data itself: users will need to generate the data themselves, and place the files (which share the same structure as soil texture data) into a path (geog_sub_path) named soilcolour_30s. Scripts that read in CLM-5 data and translate them to NoahMP format are available at this git repository.

Collaborators

@aomanzi @marcelopaivaramos @carlosrenatosouza2 @pkubota

Type of Change

  • Bug fix
  • Hot fix
  • New feature
  • Improvement to existing functionality
  • Code refactoring
  • Code optimization
  • Other: ______

Testing and Quality

  • Code was written following MONAN’s DTN-01 (Coding Standard)
  • Compilation and execution tests of the model were executed
  • Test with the debug flag was executed
  • Results are reproducible with the default configuration

Scientific Impact

This implementation should allow for better spatial representation of surface reflectivity at global scales. This is simply a rebase of PR #18 onto feature/monan-757-NF. The results are consistent with the previous pull request. The differences in albedo (defined in the bulk form, i.e., ratio of average upwelling solar irradiance and downwelling solar irradiance, both integrated over a 48-hour period) between this pull request and the baseline version (feature/monan-757-NF).

albbulk_base_soil_colour_NoahMP_2025092200 albbulk_test_soil_colour_NoahMP_2025092200 albbulk_diff_soil_colour_NoahMP_2025092200

mpaiao added 8 commits January 5, 2026 07:41
This is the first commit to implement geographically variable soil colour initialisation
in MONAN. First, the original Noah-MP table of albedo thresholds was replaced by the
CLM-5, and the code was edited so the soil colour class is no longer hardcoded.
…and replaces the

original classes in NoahMP (8 classes) with those defined in CLM-5 (20 classes).

This has not been tested yet, so it is likely the first of a few commits until the new
capability is fully functional.
@mpaiao mpaiao changed the title 757nf plus soil colour Add spatially heterogeneous soil colour maps for NoahMP (based on feature/monan-757-NF) Jan 5, 2026
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mpaiao commented Jan 10, 2026

I finally managed to get the postprocessing to work, and I confirm that this new pull request is qualitatively producing the same results as #18 (I didn't pursue bit-for-bit compatibility as the baseline is different in any case). I will mark this PR as ready for review and close #18.

@mpaiao mpaiao marked this pull request as ready for review January 10, 2026 13:30
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