Perspectives on Land Model Development in the Era of Modern Hydrology Remote Sensing (Invited)

Majority of the current Land surface models (LSMs) were originally developed to provide lower boundary conditions for atmospheric modeling systems. They have, however, progressed to include more detailed representations of the land surface processes. These models are currently used in a wide variety of research and operational environments to support applications spanning from NWP to water resources and agricultural environments. While the atmospheric and ocean modeling communities have made significant progress in using satellite remote sensing datasets, the land and hydrology communities have lagged behind them in such areas. Data assimilation applications require the prognostic representation of variables within the LSM consistent with those available from remote sensing observations. However, the land model development efforts do not usually prioritize these needs, which has hampered the advancement of satellite data use within the land models. It is critical to establish a coordinated strategy for the development, advancement, examination, and assessment of LSMs to ensure the full exploitation of remote sensing information and to ensure compatibility with other Earth system modeling efforts. As model interoperability with other earth system models becomes an urgent need, efforts such as developing standardized interfaces and linking code repositories are also required to allow for more rapid integration of new model developments into scientific and operational environments. Similar to the conventions in atmospheric modeling communities, there is also a need for formal testbed environments that allow systematic, sustained, and comprehensive evaluation of land model simulations against reference datasets, so that improved physical realism of land model estimates can be realized. This presentation will detail these perspectives and recommendations for hydrological model development, research studies, and applications in this context.