--LDAS project provides an opportunity for LSMs to run in a real-time and retrospective fashion using a common grid and a common set of data. It allows for the comparison of state variables, energy and water balances etc…

--The only commitment is for the three core LDAS models (VIC, Mosaic, NOAH) to run in a real-time fashion on the NOAA server.

--Guest models will be permitted to participate in the LDAS project from time to time. Their participation may help to address specific modeling or data problems that emerge over the course of the project.

--Friday September 17^th, 1:00 at NCEP

--Elevation adjustments are now completed for 2m-air temperature, surface pressure, downward longwave radiation and 2m specific humidity.

--Future refinements to forcing variable corrections may account for water vapor effects on LW radiation.

--Unadjusted NOAA forcing became available on April 13^th, and adjusted NOAA forcing became available on July 12^th.

--Each LDAS group should have its own separate cronjob on the SGI100 to pull in necessary forcing data and to run their respective LSMs.

--A flag file will be located on the SGI100 which will indicate (with 1’s and 0’s) the presence or absence of forcing data for every day.

--Forcing will be placed on the SGI100 by 0600 UTC each day.

--Mapping of vegetation parameters from SiB, SiB2, BATS, Mosaic and IGBP classification schemes to the UMD classification scheme has been completed.

--Three tables of mapped parameters are available on the LDAS web site. The first table consists of merged static parameter values (i.e., it provides one averaged, mapped parameter value as opposed to the separate mapped values derived from each of the classification schemes mentioned above). The second table provides mapped monthly parameter values based on the Mosaic LSM. The third table provides un-merged static parameter values—these are the values that were eventually merged to provide the data in table 1.

--Mapped parameters available in table 1 include: Height of Canopy Top, Height of Canopy Bottom, Roughness Length, Minimum Stomatal Resistance, Minimum Stomatal Conductance, Leaf Angle Distribution, Leaf Width, Leaf Length, Visible and Near IR Leaf Albedo, Visible and Near IR Stem/Dead Albedo, Visible and Near IR Leaf Transmittance, Visible and Near IR Stem/Dead Transmittance, Maximum Leaf Area Index, Minimum Leaf Area Index, Stem Area Index, Rooting Depth, Displacement Height, Maximum Fractional Vegetation Coverage, Difference Between Max. Frac. Coverage and Coverage at 269K, Canopy Cover Fraction, Visible and Near IR Soil Litter Reflectance and Overstory Flag

--Vegetation parameters that are needed by LDAS group members, but that have not yet been mapped, will be provided and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

--1 to 1½ years of Oklahoma data will arrive in the near future.

--Seasonal variations of soil moisture at NRCS stations have been examined.

--Plots of temporal soil moisture variation at NRCS stations is available at http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu

--Questionable behavior of some soil moisture profiles at NRCS stations raised concerns about the accuracy of some of the soil moisture probes.

--Mosaic has been cycling in a real-time mode for approximately 1 year.

--Summer student at NASA/GSFC has created a real-time validation page for skin temperature based on GOES radiation data. This page is located on the LDAS web site.

--Debugging is proceeding on the new Mosaic model driver. Once this is completed, retrospective runs from 1996-present will commence. Completion of the new driver will also allow for TRMM soil moisture data to be assimilated into the Mosaic model.

--A new LDAS logo has been created and is now in use on the LDAS web page. The logo will be revised one more time to address concerns voiced by the group.

--A new LDAS web site has been unveiled. The new web site is located at the same address as the old site (http://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov).

--Version 2 of the NOAH model is now available.

--NOAH model is now available as part of the MM5 model.

--The NOAH model now uses 1/8^th degree soils data and 1/8^th degree UMD vegetation. Use of the new soil data has eliminated the blockiness of soil moisture seen in earlier runs.

--Questions exist about the precipitation used for forcing by the NOAH model. 2 days out of 31, EDAS precipitation was used because CPC precipitation was missing. More debugging may be needed.

--Possible phasing problem may exist in the ground heat flux values produced by the NOAH model.

--ETA versus GOES comparisons can be viewed at http://orbit-net.nesdis.noaa.gov/goes/gcip/html/scatter.html

--There will be a joint NOAA/NASA satellite data assimilation project.

--The VIC model is up and running on a new Linux-based PC.

--A 50-year retrospective is planned. First push will be for simulations of conditions in the major basins of the Mississippi.

--VIC forcing includes daily precipitation, and daily maximum and minimum temperature values. Other necessary variables are derived from this initial set of three variables.

--Work needs to be done with NCEP on the Sacramento model/data interface.

--Basins need to be picked for Sacramento simulations.

--Eric Wood will submit an abstract to the AGU meeting that will give an overview of the LDAS project. The AMS LDAS abstract will serve as a model for this AGU abstract. (Wood)

--Presentation materials including Microsoft PowerPoint images (and other images and text) will be made available on the LDAS web site. (All)

--Raw vegetation mapping fractions will be added to the LDAS web site. (Cosgrove)

--A digital version of the Küchler vegetation map will be provided to NASA. (Wood)

--As a sanity check, all LDAS LSMs should compare monthly precipitation with the NCEP CPC product to ensure that precipitation is being correctly read in.