Metrics as Tools for Assessing Land-Climate Feedback in Observations and Models

Abstract:

Coupled land-atmosphere model development has lagged behind coupled ocean-atmosphere model development for a variety of reasons. While theories of land-atmosphere interaction across a range of space and time scales are well-developed, the capacity to verify them in nature, and thus to confront weather and climate models regarding the fidelity of their representations of coupled processes, has been lacking. Recently, observations of land surface states, surface fluxes, and co-located meteorological data have been growing rapidly, and as time passes the lengths of the time series grow to make the data sets ever more useful. This is allowing the development of a range of metrics to assess land-climate feedbacks in nature and models. Metrics can be process-based or statistical, targeted to a range of time- and space-scales, and designed to isolate and illuminate model deficiencies, leading to more accurate simulations and better forecasts. A range of useful metrics will be reviewed and remaining challenges will be discussed.