Critical Soil Moisture Estimates and Regime Properties

This repository provides the datasets, processing workflows, and analysis codes used to estimate critical soil moisture thresholds (θ*) at the global scale and to characterize hydrological regime dynamics and land–atmosphere interactions. The framework derives θ* using three independent proxy pathways that represent complementary physical processes governing land surface feedbacks: diurnal soil temperature range (dTsoil), evaporative fraction (EF), and the temporal rate of soil moisture drying (dθ/dt). In addition to θ* estimates, the repository includes a suite of derived regime diagnostics designed to quantify hydrological stability and transition behavior. These include persistence (γ), defined as the fraction of time spent in the water-limited regime; tipping potential (τ), representing the probability of regime switching; and binary regime classification accuracy (π), which measures the level of agreement among independent critical threshold estimation methods. The persistence (γ) and tipping potential (τ) metrics are computed separately for EF-, dTsoil-, and dθ/dt-based thresholds, whereas the classification accuracy (π) metric is evaluated between dTsoil–EF and dTsoil–dθ/dt method pairs to assess cross-proxy consistency. The repository further provides estimates of land–atmosphere coupling strength (Ω), a diagnostic metric that describes the sensitivity of surface energy partitioning to soil moisture variability and enables the identification of regions with strong soil moisture–atmosphere feedbacks (“coupling hotspots”). The Ω metric is derived consistently across all three methods.References: For detailed methodological descriptions, definitions of θ* thresholds, and full explanations of derived regime metrics, users are referred to the original article: https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EF006194. See the latest version of this repository at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28498622Connect: For questions, technical clarifications, or collaboration inquiries, please contact the repository author at: [e-mail] | https://sites.google.com/view/sandipan-paul?usp=sharing