2.7
Continental-scale hydrologic analyses and its development over the past Forty years.
Eric F. Wood, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
The evolution of continental-scale hydrologic modeling and analyses can be traced to Eugene Rasmusson's pioneering 1960s work in computing the atmospheric water budget and establishing its links to continental-scale terrestrial hydrology. This work established the importance of understanding land-atmospheric coupling and continental-scale hydrologic processes, and helped develop the field of hydrometeorology, enhanced through Gene's work with the NWS River Forecast Centers. It also provided a clearer perspective of the integrated nature of atmospheric and terrestrial water and energy processes, which Gene articulated through his GEWEX contributions. Land surface modeling has progresses to the point that coupled water-energy-vegetation macro-scale models are run routinely at high resolutions at continental to global scales, and compared to atmospheric computations from weather and climate models and remote sensing observations to offer integrated assessments of continental-scale water and energy budgets. This talk will provide an overview of this development using recent results from the author's macroscale land surface model and remote sensing retrievals to revisit research questions that Gene Rasmusson has investigated during his career.
Session 2, Oral Session Part II
Thursday, 18 January 2007, 1:30 PM-5:00 PM, 217C
Previous paper Next paper