Sensitivity of albedo and greenness fraction parameters in surface fluxes estimated from Noah land surface models in the FLUXNET sites

Land surface models (LSMs) use given sets of parameters to represent landscape and plant functional types such as grasses, crops, and trees present within the modeling domain. The general practice is to use climatological maps of albedo and greenness fraction data as the parameter input to the land surface model, which is later interpolated in the subsequent calculation of water and energy flux exchanges. The mean seasonal albedo and the mean monthly greenness fraction are being used in current generation of Noah land surface models. This study has investigated on the sensitivity of these parameters for the Noah 2.7.1 and Noah 3.2 models that are included in the Land Information System. The experiments are conducted at several FLUXNET station points located across the world using the forcings from in situ observations. The MODIS based 1-km resolution seasonal albedo and NCEP 1-km monthly greenness fraction data are used to obtain albedo and greenness fraction at the FLUXNET stations. The sensitivity of the albedo and greenness fraction in estimation of sensible and latent heat fluxes are examined separately for both models. The results would be helpful in gaining insights on improvements that can be achieved by using interannually-varying or near-real-time albedo and vegetation parameters