Assessment of Implementing Satellite-Derived Land Cover Data in the Eta Model

Abstract One of the challenges in land surface modeling involves specifying accurately the initial state of the land surface. Most efforts have focused upon using a multiyear climatology to specify the fractional coverage of vegetation. For example, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Eta Model uses a 5-yr satellite climatology of monthly normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values to define the fractional vegetation coverage, or greenness, at 1/8° (approximately 14 km) resolution. These data are valid on the 15th of every month and are interpolated temporally for daily runs. Yet vegetation characteristics change from year to year and are influenced by short-lived events such as fires, crop harvesting, droughts, floods, and hailstorms that are missed using a climatological database. To explore the importance of the initial state vegetation characteristics on operational numerical weather forecasts, the response of the Eta Model to initializing fractional vegetation coverage d...

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