The Sensitivity of Simulated River Discharge to Land Surface Representation and Meteorological Forcings

Abstract The discharge of freshwater into oceans represents a fundamental process in the global climate system, and this flux is taken into account in simulations with general circulation models (GCMs). Moreover, the availability of realistic river routing schemes is a powerful instrument to assess the validity of land surface components, which have been recognized to be crucial for the global climate simulation. In this study, surface and subsurface runoff generated by the 13 land surface schemes (LSSs) participating in the Second Global Soil Wetness Project (GSWP-2) are used as input fields for the Hydrology Discharge (HD) routing model to simulate discharge for 30 of the world’s largest rivers. The simplest land surface models do not provide a good representation of runoff, and routed river flows using these inputs are affected by many biases. On the other hand, HD shows the best simulations when forced by two of the more sophisticated schemes. The multimodel ensemble GSWP-2 generates the best phasing of the annual cycle as well as a good representation of absolute values, although the ensemble mean tends to smooth the peaks. Finally, the intermodel comparison shows the limits and deficiencies of a velocity-constant routing model such as HD, particularly in the phase of mean annual discharge. The second part of the study assesses the sensitivity of river discharge to the variation of external meteorological forcing. The Center for Ocean–Land–Atmosphere Studies version of the SSiB model is constrained with different meteorological fields and the resulting runoff is used as input for HD. River flow is most sensitive to precipitation variability, but changes in radiative forcing affect discharge as well, presumably because of the interaction with evaporation. Also, this analysis provides an estimate of the sensitivity of river discharge to precipitation variations. A few areas (e.g., central and eastern Asia, the Mediterranean, and much of the United States) show a magnified response of river discharge to a given percentage change in precipitation. Hence, an amplified effect of droughts as indicated by the consensus of climate change predictions may occur in places such as the Mediterranean. Conversely, increasing summer precipitation foreseen in places like southern and eastern Asia may amplify floods in these poor and heavily populated regions. Globally, a 1% fluctuation in precipitation forcing results in an average 2.3% change in discharge. These results can be used for the definition and assessment of new strategies for land use and water management in the near future.

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An ensemble of AMIP simulations with prescribed land surface temperatures

10.5194/gmd-2018-77 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Duncan Ackerley ◽

Robin Chadwick ◽

Dietmar Dommenget ◽

Paola Petrelli

Keyword(s):

Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface ◽

General Circulation ◽

Global Climate ◽

General Circulation Models ◽

Solar Constant ◽

Surface Temperatures ◽

Co2 Concentrations ◽

Land Surface Temperatures ◽

Intercomparison Project

Abstract. General circulation models (GCMs) are routinely run under Atmospheric Modelling Intercomparison Project (AMIP) conditions with prescribed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea ice concentrations (SICs) from observations. These AMIP simulations are often used to evaluate the role of the land and/or atmosphere in causing the development of systematic errors in such GCMs. Extensions to the original AMIP experiment have also been developed to evaluate the response of the global climate to increased SSTs (prescribed) and carbon-dioxide (CO2) as part of the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP). None of these international modelling initiatives has undertaken a set of experiments where the land conditions are also prescribed, which is the focus of the work presented in this paper. Experiments are performed initially with freely varying land conditions (surface temperature and, soil temperature and mositure) under five different configurations (AMIP, AMIP with uniform 4 K added to SSTs, AMIP SST with quadrupled CO2, AMIP SST and quadrupled CO2 without the plant stomata response, and increasing the solar constant by 3.3 %). Then, the land surface temperatures from the free-land experiments are used to perform a set of “AMIP-prescribed land” (PL) simulations, which are evaluated against their free-land counterparts. The PL simulations agree well with the free-land experiments, which indicates that the land surface is prescribed in a way that is consistent with the original free-land configuration. Further experiments are also performed with different combinations of SSTs, CO2 concentrations, solar constant and land conditions. For example, SST and land conditions are used from the AMIP simulation with quadrupled CO2 in order to simulate the atmospheric response to increased CO2 concentrations without the surface temperature changing. The results of all these experiments have been made publicly available for further analysis. The main aims of this paper are to provide a description of the method used and an initial validation of these AMIP-prescribed land experiments.

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Do high resolution GCMs overestimate precipitation over land?

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-8733 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Omar Müller ◽

Pier Luigi Vidale ◽

Patrick McGuire ◽

Benoît Vannière ◽

Reinhard Schiemann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Resolution ◽

Land Surface ◽

River Discharge ◽

Hydrological Cycle ◽

Transport Model ◽

Meteorological Data ◽

Grid Point ◽

Climate Simulation ◽

Surface Model ◽

Orographic Precipitation

Previous studies showed that high resolution GCMs overestimate land precipitation when compared against gridded observations or reanalysis (Demory et al. 2014, Vanni&#232;re et al. 2019). In particular, grid point models (eg. HadGEM3) show a significant increase of precipitation on regions dominated by complex orography, where the scarcity of gauge stations increase the uncertainty of gridded observations. The goal of this work is to assess the effect of such differences in precipitation on river discharge, considering it as an integrator of the water balance at catchment scale. A set of JULES and CLM simulations have been conducted turning rivers on with Total Runoff Integrating Pathways (TRIP) and the River Transport Model (RTM) respectively. The simulations form three ensembles for each land surface model (LSM) which main difference is given by the forcing dataset. The forcings are WFDEI (reanalysis), LR (~1&#176; resolution in meteorological data from GCMs) and HR (~0.25&#176; resolution in meteorological data from GCMs). These ensembles are evaluated in a set of 280 catchments distributed around the world.In terms of correlation between simulated and observed river discharge observations, the results show that LSMs forced by reanalysis have higher performance than LSMs forced by GCMs as expected. In terms of biases, the river discharge is underestimated in eight out of eleven major basins when LSMs are forced by reanalysis. On those basins, the extra precipitation estimated by GCMs help to simulate an amount of river discharge closer to observations (Eg. Yenisey and Lena). Moreover, 37 small basins with a strong component of orographic precipitation over the Andes, the Rocky Mountains, the Alps and in the Maritime Continent were evaluated. In most cases HR offers notably better results than LR and WFDEI, suggesting that high resolution models produce orographic precipitation in the correct place and time.In future works offline TRIP simulations will be carried out directly forced by runoff and subsurface runoff from GCMs. It will allow to discard errors in evapotranspiration produced by JULES or CLM when they are used to simulate river discharge. This work is part of the European Process-based climate sIMulation: AdVances in high resolution modelling and European climate Risk Assessment (PRIMAVERA) Project. PRIMAVERA is a collaboration between 19 funded by the European Union&#8217;s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation Programme.Demory, M. E., Vidale, P. L., Roberts, M. J., Berrisford, P., Strachan, J., Schiemann, R., & Mizielinski, M. S. (2014). The role of horizontal resolution in simulating drivers of the global hydrological cycle.&#160;CLIM DYNAM,&#160;42(7-8), 2201-2225.Vanni&#232;re, B., Demory, M. E., Vidale, P. L., Schiemann, R., Roberts, M. J., Roberts, C. D., ... & Senan, R. (2018). Multi-model evaluation of the sensitivity of the global energy budget and hydrological cycle to resolution.&#160;CLIM DYNAM, 1-30.

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The potential effects of climate change on air quality across the conterminous U.S. at 2030 under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs)

10.5194/acp-2018-510 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Christopher G. Nolte ◽

Tanya L. Spero ◽

Jared H. Bowden ◽

Megan S. Mallard ◽

Patrick D. Dolwick

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Air Quality ◽

Global Climate ◽

Regional Climate ◽

The United States ◽

Historical Period ◽

Daily Maximum ◽

Good Representation ◽

Representative Concentration Pathways ◽

Concentration Changes

Abstract. The potential impacts of climate change on regional ozone (O3) and fine particulate (PM2.5) air quality in the United States are investigated by downscaling Community Earth System Model (CESM) global climate simulations with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, then using the downscaled meteorological fields with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. Regional climate and air quality change between 2000 and 2030 under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) is simulated using 11-year time slices from CESM. The regional climate fields represent historical daily maximum and daily minimum temperatures well, with mean biases less than 2 K for most regions of the U.S. and most seasons of the year and good representation of the variability. Precipitation in the central and eastern U.S. is well simulated for the historical period, with seasonal and annual biases generally less than 25 %, and positive biases in the western U.S. throughout the year and in part of the eastern U.S. during summer. Maximum daily 8-h ozone (MDA8 O3) is projected to increase during summer and autumn in the central and eastern U.S. The increase in summer mean MDA8 O3 is largest under RCP8.5, exceeding 4 ppb in some locations, with smaller seasonal mean increases of up to 2 ppb simulated during autumn and changes during spring generally less than 1 ppb. Increases are magnified at the upper end of the O3 distribution, particularly where projected increases in temperature are greater. Annual average PM2.5 concentration changes range from −1.0 to 1.0 μg m−3. Organic PM2.5 concentrations increase during summer and autumn due to increased biogenic emissions. Decreases in aerosol nitrate occur during winter, accompanied by lesser decreases in ammonium and sulfate, due to warmer temperatures causing increased partitioning to the gas phase. Among meteorological factors examined to account for modeled changes in pollution, temperature and isoprene emissions are found to have the largest changes and the greatest impact on O3 concentrations.

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Dust aerosol radiative effects during summer 2012 simulated with a coupled regional aerosol–atmosphere–ocean model over the Mediterranean

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-14-25351-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 14 (18) ◽

pp. 25351-25410 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

P. Nabat ◽

S. Somot ◽

M. Mallet ◽

M. Michou ◽

F. Sevault ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Radiative Forcing ◽

Dust Aerosol ◽

Dust Particles ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽

Surface Solar Radiation ◽

Climate System Model ◽

The Mediterranean ◽

Daily Variability ◽

Aerosol Radiative

Abstract. The present study investigates the effects of aerosols on the Mediterranean climate daily variability during summer 2012. Simulations have been carried out using the coupled regional climate system model CNRM-RCSM5 which includes prognostic aerosols, namely desert dust, sea salt, organic, black-carbon and sulfate particles, in addition to the atmosphere, land surface and ocean components. An evaluation of the dust aerosol scheme of CNRM-RCSM5 has been performed against in-situ and satellite measurements. This scheme shows its ability to reproduce the spatial and temporal variability of aerosol optical depth (AOD) over the Mediterranean region in summer 2012. Observations from the TRAQA/ChArMEx campaign also show that the model correctly represents dust vertical and size distributions. Thus CNRM-RCSM5 can be used for aerosol–climate studies over the Mediterranean. Here we focus on the effects of dust particles on surface temperature and radiation daily variability. Surface shortwave aerosol radiative forcing variability is found to be more than twice higher over regions affected by dust aerosols, when using a prognostic aerosol scheme instead of a monthly climatology. In this case downward surface solar radiation is also found to be better reproduced according to a comparison with several stations across the Mediterranean. Moreover, the radiative forcing due to the dust outbreaks also causes an extra cooling in land and sea surface temperatures. A composite study has been carried out for 14 stations across the Mediterranean to identify more precisely the differences between dusty days and the set of all the days. Observations show that dusty days receive less radiation at the surface and are warmer than average because of southwesterly fluxes often generating dust outbreaks. Only the simulation using the prognostic aerosol scheme is found to reproduce the observed intensity of the dimming and warming on dusty days. Otherwise, the dimming is underestimated and the warming overestimated.

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Wetland Ecology

Ecology ◽

10.1093/obo/9780199830060-0220 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Curtis J. Richardson ◽

R. Scott Winton

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Land Surface ◽

Coastal Wetland ◽

Global Climate ◽

The United States ◽

Peat Bogs ◽

Wetland Ecology ◽

Atmospheric Methane ◽

Soil Redox ◽

1960S And 1970S

Wetland ecosystems comprise only 3–5 percent of the world’s land surface, but their unique habitats and specialized and rare species have garnered the attention of biologists for centuries. The use of wetlands in Europe and Asia has a deep history, as draining peat bogs, marshes, mires, and swamps for fuel, timber, and agricultural crops was common practice. The first academic use of the word wetlands appears in Catesby’s 1754 book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas Islands, and early studies of wetlands focused on the distinct flora and fauna found in these ecosystems, with a particular emphasis on waterfowl, fish, or other game. Illustrating this point is the first major assessment and classification of wetlands across the United States in 1956, which is solely based on waterfowl habitat value. Research on wetlands quickly evolved in the 1960s and 1970s to become a distinct subdiscipline of the burgeoning field of ecology. Fueled by the concept of wetlands as “Mother Nature’s kidneys,” and by their potential for cheap wastewater treatment, there was an initial focus on their biogeochemical and hydrologic functions on the landscape, as well as the nutrient removal or transformation services they provided. Research in both Europe and the United States also focused on how plants and animals survived the alternating wet/dry soil regimes wetlands possessed and demonstrated that wide-ranging soil redox conditions were microbial driven and produced either reduced or oxidized chemical ions, often with toxic or altered properties, depending on the presence or absence of oxygen and alternate electron acceptors like nitrate or iron. These findings led to a number of elegant studies focusing on the ecophysiology of how wetland plants and animals survived anaerobic conditions, the presence of toxic chemicals, and saline conditions found in coastal marshes. Since the 1990s, research has focused more on biogeochemical cycling in wetlands, especially nitrogen, phosphorus, and, more recently, carbon flux and storage as it relates to global climate change, as it became understood that wetland soils are globally important stores of carbon and sources of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Thus, global warming effects on boreal and tropical wetlands and continued drainage of these ecosystems worldwide have become a major area of concern, along with the effects of sea level rise on coastal wetland survival. To offset these losses, the fields of wetland restoration and ecologic economics have become increasing relevant.

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Impact of Climate Change on River Discharge Projected by Multimodel Ensemble

Journal of Hydrometeorology ◽

10.1175/jhm531.1 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 7 (5) ◽

pp. 1076-1089 ◽

Cited By ~ 251

Author(s):

Daisuke Nohara ◽

Akio Kitoh ◽

Masahiro Hosaka ◽

Taikan Oki

Keyword(s):

River Discharge ◽

Mediterranean Region ◽

General Circulation ◽

River Flow ◽

Central Africa ◽

General Circulation Models ◽

First Century ◽

Upstream Region ◽

The Mediterranean ◽

Twenty First Century

Abstract This study investigates the projections of river discharge for 24 major rivers in the world during the twenty-first century simulated by 19 coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models based on the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A1B scenario. To reduce model bias and uncertainty, a weighted ensemble mean (WEM) is used for multimodel projections. Although it is difficult to reproduce the present river discharge in any single model, the WEM results produce more accurate reproduction for most rivers, except those affected by anthropogenic water usage. At the end of the twenty-first century, the annual mean precipitation, evaporation, and runoff increase in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, southern to eastern Asia, and central Africa. In contrast, they decrease in the Mediterranean region, southern Africa, southern North America, and Central America. Although the geographical distribution of the changes in precipitation and runoff tends to coincide with that in the river discharge, it should be emphasized that the change in runoff at the upstream region affects the river flow in the downstream region. In high-latitude rivers (Amur, Lena, MacKenzie, Ob, Yenisei, and Yukon), the discharge increases, and the peak timing shifts earlier because of an earlier snowmelt caused by global warming. Discharge tends to decrease for the rivers in Europe to the Mediterranean region (Danube, Euphrates, and Rhine), and southern United Sates (Rio Grande).

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Mid-Pliocene global climate simulation with MRI-CGCM2.3: set-up and initial results of PlioMIP Experiments 1 and 2

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-5-793-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 793-808 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Y. Kamae ◽

H. Ueda

Keyword(s):

General Circulation ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Ocean General Circulation Model ◽

Climate Simulation ◽

Polar Regions ◽

The North ◽

Set Up

Abstract. The mid-Pliocene (3.3 to 3.0 million yr ago), a globally warm period before the Quaternary, is recently attracting attention as a new target for paleoclimate modelling and data-model synthesis. This paper reports set-ups and results of experiments proposed in Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) using a global climate model, MRI-CGCM2.3. We conducted pre-industrial and mid-Pliocene runs by using the coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) and its atmospheric component (AGCM) for the PlioMIP Experiments 2 and 1, respectively. In addition, we conducted two types of integrations in AOGCM simulation, with and without flux adjustments on sea surface. General characteristics of differences in the simulated mid-Pliocene climate relative to the pre-industrial in the three integrations are compared. In addition, patterns of predicted mid-Pliocene biomes resulting from the three climate simulations are compared in this study. Generally, difference of simulated surface climate between AGCM and AOGCM is larger than that between the two AOGCM runs, with and without flux adjustments. The simulated climate shows different pattern between AGCM and AOGCM particularly over low latitude oceans, subtropical land regions and high latitude oceans. The AOGCM simulations do not reproduce wetter environment in the subtropics relative to the present-day, which is suggested by terrestrial proxy data. The differences between the two types of AOGCM runs are small over the land, but evident over the ocean particularly in the North Atlantic and polar regions.

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An ensemble of AMIP simulations with prescribed land surface temperatures

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-11-3865-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 3865-3881 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Duncan Ackerley ◽

Robin Chadwick ◽

Dietmar Dommenget ◽

Paola Petrelli

Keyword(s):

Surface Temperature ◽

Land Surface ◽

General Circulation ◽

Global Climate ◽

General Circulation Models ◽

Solar Constant ◽

Surface Temperatures ◽

Co2 Concentrations ◽

Land Surface Temperatures ◽

Intercomparison Project

Abstract. General circulation models (GCMs) are routinely run under Atmospheric Modelling Intercomparison Project (AMIP) conditions with prescribed sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea ice concentrations (SICs) from observations. These AMIP simulations are often used to evaluate the role of the land and/or atmosphere in causing the development of systematic errors in such GCMs. Extensions to the original AMIP experiment have also been developed to evaluate the response of the global climate to increased SSTs (prescribed) and carbon dioxide (CO2) as part of the Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP). None of these international modelling initiatives has undertaken a set of experiments where the land conditions are also prescribed, which is the focus of the work presented in this paper. Experiments are performed initially with freely varying land conditions (surface temperature, and soil temperature and moisture) under five different configurations (AMIP, AMIP with uniform 4 K added to SSTs, AMIP SST with quadrupled CO2, AMIP SST and quadrupled CO2 without the plant stomata response, and increasing the solar constant by 3.3 %). Then, the land surface temperatures from the free land experiments are used to perform a set of “AMIP prescribed land” (PL) simulations, which are evaluated against their free land counterparts. The PL simulations agree well with the free land experiments, which indicates that the land surface is prescribed in a way that is consistent with the original free land configuration. Further experiments are also performed with different combinations of SSTs, CO2 concentrations, solar constant and land conditions. For example, SST and land conditions are used from the AMIP simulation with quadrupled CO2 in order to simulate the atmospheric response to increased CO2 concentrations without the surface temperature changing. The results of all these experiments have been made publicly available for further analysis. The main aims of this paper are to provide a description of the method used and an initial validation of these AMIP prescribed land experiments.

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The BRIDGE HadCM3 family of climate models: HadCM3@Bristol v1.0

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-10-3715-2017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (10) ◽

pp. 3715-3743 ◽

Cited By ~ 67

Author(s):

Paul J. Valdes ◽

Edward Armstrong ◽

Marcus P. S. Badger ◽

Catherine D. Bradshaw ◽

Fran Bragg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Ocean Circulation ◽

Land Surface ◽

General Circulation ◽

Computational Models ◽

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Good Representation ◽

Comprehensive Overview

Abstract. Understanding natural and anthropogenic climate change processes involves using computational models that represent the main components of the Earth system: the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and land surface. These models have become increasingly computationally expensive as resolution is increased and more complex process representations are included. However, to gain robust insight into how climate may respond to a given forcing, and to meaningfully quantify the associated uncertainty, it is often required to use either or both ensemble approaches and very long integrations. For this reason, more computationally efficient models can be very valuable tools. Here we provide a comprehensive overview of the suite of climate models based around the HadCM3 coupled general circulation model. This model was developed at the UK Met Office and has been heavily used during the last 15 years for a range of future (and past) climate change studies, but has now been largely superseded for many scientific studies by more recently developed models. However, it continues to be extensively used by various institutions, including the BRIDGE (Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment) research group at the University of Bristol, who have made modest adaptations to the base HadCM3 model over time. These adaptations mean that the original documentation is not entirely representative, and several other relatively undocumented configurations are in use. We therefore describe the key features of a number of configurations of the HadCM3 climate model family, which together make up HadCM3@Bristol version 1.0. In order to differentiate variants that have undergone development at BRIDGE, we have introduced the letter B into the model nomenclature. We include descriptions of the atmosphere-only model (HadAM3B), the coupled model with a low-resolution ocean (HadCM3BL), the high-resolution atmosphere-only model (HadAM3BH), and the regional model (HadRM3B). These also include three versions of the land surface scheme. By comparing with observational datasets, we show that these models produce a good representation of many aspects of the climate system, including the land and sea surface temperatures, precipitation, ocean circulation, and vegetation. This evaluation, combined with the relatively fast computational speed (up to 1000 times faster than some CMIP6 models), motivates continued development and scientific use of the HadCM3B family of coupled climate models, predominantly for quantifying uncertainty and for long multi-millennial-scale simulations.

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Land Surface Albedo from Geostationary Satelites: A Multiagency Collaboration within SCOPE-CM

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ◽

10.1175/bams-d-11-00230.1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 94 (2) ◽

pp. 205-214 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Alessio Lattanzio ◽

Jörg Schulz ◽

Jessica Matthews ◽

Arata Okuyama ◽

Bertrand Theodore ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Satellite Data ◽

Land Surface ◽

Surface Albedo ◽

Global Climate ◽

The United States ◽

Japan Meteorological Agency ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Monitoring ◽

Governmental Institutions

Climate has been recognized to have direct and indirect impact on society and economy, both in the long term and daily life. The challenge of understanding the climate system, with its variability and changes, is enormous and requires a joint long-term international commitment from research and governmental institutions. An important international body to coordinate worldwide climate monitoring efforts is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) has the mission to provide coordination and the requirements for global observations and essential climate variables (ECVs) to monitor climate changes. The WMO-led activity on Sustained, Coordinated Processing of Environmental Satellite Data for Climate Monitoring (SCOPE-CM) is responding to these requirements by ensuring a continuous and sustained generation of climate data records (CDRs) from satellite data in compliance with the principles and guidelines of GCOS. SCOPE-CM represents a new partnership between operational space agencies to coordinate the generation of CDRs. To this end, pilot projects for different ECVs, such as surface albedo, cloud properties, water vapor, atmospheric motion winds, and upper-tropospheric humidity, have been initiated. The coordinated activity on land surface albedo involves the operational meteorological satellite agencies in Europe [European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)], in Japan [the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)], and in the United States [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)]. This paper presents the first results toward the generation of a unique land surface albedo CDR, involving five different geostationary satellite positions and approximately three decades of data starting in the 1980s, and combining close to 30 different satellite instruments.

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