Kochendorfer, John P., authorRamírez, Jorge A., authorColorado State University, publisher2020-01-292020-01-292003https://hdl.handle.net/10217/199991http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/199991Includes bibliographical references.23rd annual AGU hydrology days was held on March 31 - April 2, 2003 at Colorado State University.Using a stochastic differential equation (SDE) approach, we examine the dynamics of the continental-scale water balance in the central United States. White-noise and colored-noise versions of the model are developed based on analysis of atmospheric data from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) re-analysis project and long-term records of precipitation and soil moisture. Improved correspondence to observations is achieved by inclusion of terms in the SDE representing both hydrodynamic and thermodynamic soil-moisture feedbacks. We show that temporally correlated (i.e., colored) atmospheric moisture flux removes the bimodality of the soil moisture probability distribution and that our colored-noise formulation successfully captures the water balance dynamics in the study region despite the absence of multiple soil moisture states. Specifically, the improved model reproduces both the autocorrelation structure and the inter-annual variability in the observations.born digitalproceedings (reports)engCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.Text