Modeling Land Surface Processes in Short-term Weather and Climate Studies

Land exchanges momentum, energy, water, aerosols, carbon dioxide and other trace gases with its overlying atmosphere. The land surface influences climate on local, regional and global scales across a wide range of timescales. This review concentrates on the rapid (i.e., seconds to seasons) biophysical and hydrological aspects of land surface processes. This paper provides the historical development of land surface models designed for short-term weather and climate studies, ranging from the early, simple “bucket” models to recent sophisticated soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer schemes. Major research issues are reviewed by grouping into datasets, coupling to atmospheric models, component processes, and sub-grid-scale variability and scaling. Significant problems remain to be addressed, including the difficulties in parameterizing hillslope runoff, fractional snow cover, stomatal resistance, evapotranspiration, and sub-grid-scale variability and scaling. However, further progress is expected as the results of large-scale field experiments and satellite datasets are exploited.