High Resolution Mesoscale Atmospheric Model Prediction and Validation

The long-term goal of this project is to improve the high-resolution model forecasts by developing a real-time globally re-locatable capability to initialize/assimilate the Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) land-surface model soil parameters. The partition of the model surface sensible and latent heat fluxes in the land-surface parameterization is sensitive to the initial soil temperature and moisture content. A proper estimation of the soil conditions thus has many important implications ranging from its impact on boundary layer thermodynamic structure to improvements in modeling the hydrological cycle.