HR: 08:00h
AN: A51E-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Studies of Land Atmosphere Coupling Using the Land Information System
AU: * Peters-Lidard, C D
EM: christa@lidard.com
AF: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Hydrological Sciences Branch, NASA/GSFC Code 614.3, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Santanello, J A
EM: sntnello@hsb.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: ESSIC/UMCP, NASA/GSFC Code 614.3, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Kumar, S V
EM: sujay@hsb.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: GEST/UMBC, NASA/GSFC Code 614.3, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Eastman, J L
EM: jleastman@hsb.gsfc.nasa.gov
AF: GEST/UMBC, NASA/GSFC Code 614.3, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AU: Tao, W
EM: tao@agnes.gsfc.nasa.gov
AB: Recent studies have examined aspects of land atmosphere coupling including the roles of soil moisture and vegetation, on the structure of the atmospheric boundary layer and initiation and evolution of clouds. However, due to limits in computational resources and/or theoretical knowledge, many of these studies have utilized highly parameterized representations of these components so that the true nature of land atmosphere coupling is still unknown. The NASA/GSFC Land Information System (LIS; http:lis.gsfc.nasa.gov) has now been successfully coupled to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF; http:www.wrfmodel.org) model, and now provides a testbed for conducting studies of land-atmosphere coupling at water and energy cycle process resolving horizontal spatial scales (1km or less). LIS is a high-performance Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS; http:ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov) that encapsulates the capabilities of the North American LDAS (NLDAS) and the Global LDAS (GLDAS) into a single software infrastructure. The original LIS consists of several land surface models (e.g., Noah, CLM, VIC, HySSiB, Catchment) that can be run in two modes: uncoupled or coupled. In uncoupled mode, the atmospheric boundary conditions are prescribed using observationally-based precipitation, radiation and meteorological inputs, while in coupled mode, these inputs are predicted by the WRF model. In both cases, LIS incorporates remotely sensed land surface parameters including Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based Leaf Area Index (LAI). In this talk, we will present results from various coupled case studies indicating a strong sensitivity of the water and energy cycles to several controls, including soil moisture, vegetation, and the atmospheric boundary layer. We will also demonstrate the value of remotely sensed observations of ecosystem properties on predicting the timing and location of convection.
UR: http:lis.gsfc.nasa.gov
DE: 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions (0426, 1610)
DE: 1814 Energy budgets
DE: 1843 Land/atmosphere interactions (1218, 1631, 3322)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly