ECLand: The ECMWF Land Surface Modelling System

The land-surface developments of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) are based on Carbon-Hydrology Tiled Scheme Surface Exchanges over Land (CHTESSEL) and form an integral part Integrated Forecasting System (IFS), supporting a wide range global weather, climate environmental applications. In order to structure, coordinate focus future benefit from international collaboration in new areas, flexible system named ECLand, which would facilitate modular extensions support numerical weather prediction (NWP) society-relevant operational services, example, Copernicus, is presented. This paper introduces recent examples novel ECLand (i) vegetation; (ii) snow; (iii) soil; (iv) open water/lake; (v) river/inundation; (vi) urban areas. evaluated separately with long-range, atmosphere-forced surface offline simulations coupled land-atmosphere-ocean experiments. illustrates benchmark criteria assessing both process fidelity regards land fluxes reservoirs water-energy-carbon exchange one hand, other hand requirements ECMWF’s NWP, atmospheric composition monitoring services using Earth assimilation framework.