In this relatively new research and application area, our objectives are to understand, through theoretical and observational studies, the complex interactions (including biophysical, hydrological, and biogeochemical interactions) between the land-surface and the atmosphere at micro- and meso-scales.
The ultimate goal is to integrate such knowledge into numerical mesoscale weather prediction and regional climate models in order to improve prediction of the impacts of land-surface processes on regional weather, climate, and hydrology. To achieve these objectives, a number of research and application studies are conducted.
The Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study 1997 field program (CASES-97) was conducted from late April-mid June 1997, look at the role of atmosphere-surface exchange in the diurnal cycle of the temperature and moisture field in the Walnut River Watershed in SE Kansas, and to improve the representation of the important processes in land-surface models. Flux and mean data from two aircraft (NOAA Twin Otter and University of Wyoming King Air) and 9 surface sites were supplemented with radiosondes, radar wind profilers from Argonne National Laboratory, and gage-corrected precipitation estimates from two radars (S-Pol and the Wichita WSR-88D).
This is a continuing collaborative research project funded by NASA Land-Surface Hydrology Program. Participants include David Yates and Fei Chen of RAP/NCAR; Margaret LeMone of MMM/NCAR; Steve Oncley of ATD/NCAR; Richard Grossman of the University of Colorado, and H. Nagai at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. The project's goal is to understand the impacts of surface heterogeneity in soil moisture and surface characteristics on the transport of temperature and moisture in the atmospheric boundary layer.
This research project focuses on the parameterization of subgrid-scale variability for mesoscale and large-scale atmospheric models. One-month observations obtained from CASES-97 were used to create a gridded multi-scale (1, 5, and 10 km) data set over an area of 71x74 km2. Three land-surface models were used to simulate the surface heat flux at these scales. These land-surface models include the relatively simple Oregon State University Land Surface Model (OSULSM), the National Center for Atmospheric Research Land Surface Model (NCARLSM), and the more complex SOLVEG with nine canopy layers and seven soil layers. Preliminary verification demonstrates that these land-surface models reasonably captured the spatial heterogeneity caused by rainfall and surface characteristics at small scales.
The boundary-layer portion of the International H2O Experiment (IHOP_2002) supports its overall goal to improve convective precipitation prediction through better use and representation of water vapor in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models through estimating surface water vapor and sensible heat fluxes, characterizing the influence of surface properties on boundary-layer heterogeneity, and understanding the role that these play in the initiation and evolution of convective precipitation systems. Data collection and analysis were designed to provide benchmarks to enable improvements in the representation of land-surface and boundary-layer processes in NWP models. more
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Land Atmosphere Interactions
