Minutes of the LDAS Meeting

Princeton University

February 25, 2000

 

 

Attendees: Alan Robock, Curtis Marshall, Dag Lohamnn, Eric Wood, Jared Entin, Lifeng Luo, Yun Duan, Radhika Wijetunge (Princeton) and Matthias Drusch (Princeton)

 

ACTION ITEM: Please add to your LDAS email list the following name/email:

Radhika Wijetunge <rwijetun@Princeton.EDU>

 

Agenda and minutes:

 

Schedule for the next meeting

It was decided that we should try and touch base at the GCIP PI meeting. For a group meeting, a possible date is Thursday April 13, 2000. Wood will be on travel and unavailable due to the NASA EOS IWG meeting. Unclear who else is unavailable. Location of next meeting not discussed.

ACTION ITEM: Indicate availability and finalize location.

 

AGU Spring 2000 LDAS Special Session (Washington DC)

Groups encouraged to submit abstracts to the AGU Special session. Unclear who will take the lead on an overview presentation.

GCIP PI meeting

For the GCIP PI meeting, it appears that the following abstracts will be submitted:

NOAA/NCEP with a focus on the NOAH uncoupled results.

Princeton/UW on forcing validation and some VIC validation

UW/Princeton on the long-term retrospective LDAS

Rutgers on the soil moisture data for validation

NOAA/OH on the test basins.

 

Reports were given on the following topics.

 

Validation plans and activities at Princeton (R. Wijetunge, Princeton).

Presented the strategy of utilizing tower data and small basin data to demonstrate basic model parameterizations. Presented results for Tilden Meyers' site in the Little Washita, and the SURFRAD site in Illinois. Discussed forcing and surface meteorology validation using OK Mesonet, which has been downloaded to Princeton and put into a GIS data base. Discussed comparisons between surface temperature from AVHRR and GOES, both of which can be compared to model outputs. Discussed our recent computer hardware problems (lost 20 GB disk and 2 processor SGI computer--the latter our gateway into NCEP.)

 

Soil moisture validation (A. Robock, Rutgers)

Report on the data acquisition across the country, and the identifiable problems--inconsistencies in the profile drying and wetting, etc. Rutgers would like some model output for some sites.ACTION ITEM: They will pick 6 sites to have us model on a point basis.

 

Evaporation comparisons from Tilden Meyers' site (Champaign, IL) (C. Marshall, NCEP)

Report on the comparisons carried out by NCEP. Significant differences between the evaporation when GOES or EDAS radiation forcing is used.

ACTION ITEM: NCEP will provide the 1999 data from Tilden Meyers' Illinois site so groups can do tower level simulations based on the tower forcings.

 

Selection of Mississippi basins; Brief on PRISM data (Q. Duan, NOAA/OH)

Initial testing of the PRISM-adjusted precipitation product has been carried out. OH is looking into the feasibility of updating the Higgin's 1/4 degree product to 1/8 degree.

 

Provided a report on the basin validation data set and the selection criteria (adequate record length and gage density). They have identified 70 basins of which they believe that 50 have real-time data. Lohmann says that this list differs from their first list, and he needs to establish the contacts to get the real-time data from the USGS.

 

ACTION ITEM: There was discussion regarding the streamflow data. OH will update the streamflow data through September 1998; NCEP will provide the data from October 1998 (WY'99) to the present. The two groups will work to get the data into common files.

 

Update on streamflow routing/validation (D. Lohmann, NCEP)

ACTION ITEM: Besides the discussion above, Dag Lohmann said that he will send out file/output format specifications for the runoff (surface, base, interflow). Basically it will be a 464x224 flat file of hourly runoff. Need to specify naming convention, units, etc.

 

Standardized list of hourly LDAS outputs (K. Mitchell, NCEP)

Not discussed

 

Global LDAS and Short-term retrospective LDAS progress (B. Cosgrove, GSFC)

Not discussed

 

Discussion of solar radiation problems (C. Marshall)

Reported that the a software bug for the GOES radiation was found and corrected as of 2/24/00. There are plans to reprocess the GOES data back to July 1999. (Our first significant project result!!)