16th Conference on Hydrology
13th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations

J1.3

Evaluation of LDAS land surface models with observed forcing and hydrology

Lifeng Luo, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; and A. Robock, K. E. Mitchell, P. R. Houser, J. C. Schaake, E. F. Wood, D. P. Lettenmaier, R. T. Pinker, and D. Tarpley

The Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) project is a multi-institutional effort to produce better land-surface hydrology simulations over the continental US for use in weather and climate models. Several land-surface models (NOAH, Mosaic, VIC, CLM, and Sacramento) participate in the project. Simulations from these models differ even when they are driven by exactly the same forcing and same surface parameters. Understanding the reasons for these differences will allow us to improve land surface models. We take advantage of actual observations of fluxes, soil and vegetation properties, soil moisture, and soil temperature at more than 40 stations from around the US for the period of 1997-1999 to perform experiments with each model to investigate the reasons for these differences. We use different combinations of standard LDAS and locally observed forcing, surface parameter specification, and meteorology, and evaluate the results from the standard and special runs with observed land state variables and fluxes. The results provide guidance for model improvement and the design of future observing networks.

Joint Session 1, land-atmosphere interactions: Part I (Joint with the 16th Conference on Hydrology and the 13th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations)
Monday, 14 January 2002, 9:30 AM-4:58 PM

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