NCA-LDAS: A Terrestrial Water Analysis Tool for Sustained Assessment and Public Dissemination of National Climate Indicators

The National Climate Assessment - Land Data Assimilation System, or NCA-LDAS, is an integrated terrestrial water analysis system created as an end-to-end enabling tool for sustained assessment and dissemination of terrestrial hydrologic indicators in support of the NCA of the United States. The primary features are i) gridded, daily time series of over forty hydrologic variables including the principal terrestrial water and energy balance stores, states and fluxes over the continental U.S. derived from land surface modeling with multivariate satellite data record assimilation (1979-2015), ii) estimated trends of the water balance components over a wide range of scales and locations, and iii) public dissemination of all NCA-LDAS data archived at and distributed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).  The data can be accessed via HTTP, OPeNDAP, Mirador search and download, and NASA Earthdata Search. To further facilitate access and use, the NCA-LDAS data are integrated into the NASA Giovanni, for quick visualization and analysis, and into the Data Rods system, for retrieval of time series of long time periods. NCA-LDAS supports sustained assessment of our national terrestrial hydrologic climate for improved scientific understanding, and the adaptation and management of water resources and related energy sectors. This presentation provides an overview of the NCA-LDAS system together with an evaluation of the initial release of NCA-LDAS data products and trends using two land surface models; Noah Ver. 3.3 and Catchment Ver. Fortuna 2.5, and a listing of the GES-DISC pathways for public access and visualization of NCA-LDAS background information and data products.