AOPC/TOPC Joint Working Group on Land-Surface/Atmosphere Issues (WG LSA)

Terms of Reference

Promote the development of methods and tools to accurately retrieve both surface and atmospheric properties in a radiatively consistent manner, as well as the benchmarking of the relevant algorithms to retrieve these ECVs.
Demonstrate the benefit of generating the products in a mutually consistent manner through an inter-comparison of time series of global ECV products, including their quality control and assessment.
Consider and recommend to TOPC and AOPC other activities that would be of interest to both the terrestrial and atmospheric communities, in particular with respect to emerging or potential ECVs, as well as other products and processes that could be of relevance to fill gaps in the current Implementation Plan or to address climate change issues.
Report to TOPC and AOPC on the progress achieved on a yearly basis with short papers or contributions to the respective annual meetings.

Specifically the WG-LSA will

Review the state of the art in land surface albedo estimation from space measurements.
Benchmark existing products (continuation and extension of the initial effort to compare Meteosat, MODIS, and MISR LSA products), both in space and time, and propose ways and means to merge such products to generate truly global products with adequate coverage in Polar Regions.
Investigate the compatibility between albedo products derived from bi-directional reflectance observations acquired by sensors on geostationary and polar-orbiting platforms.
Evaluate the factors affecting the quality of LSA products and in particular their dependency on related atmospheric products (e.g., clouds and aerosols).
Investigate the drawbacks, limitations and obstacles that have prevented the effective use of these albedo products in GCMs and recommend ways to address these issues.
Promote sensitivity studies and other appropriate projects aimed at documenting the role and impact of LSA products in climate models, with a view to establishing precise requirements on the characteristics of this product.

Members

Stephan Bojinski, GCOS Secretariat, WMO, Geneva, Switzerland

Yves Govaerts, EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, Germany

John Martonchik, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA

Bernard Pinty, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, EC JRC, Ispra, Italy

Samantha (Sam) Pullen, UK Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom

Crystal Schaaf, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Johannes Schmetz, EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, Germany

Didier Tanré, Laboratoire d'Optique Atmospherique, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France

Eric Vermote, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Michel M. Verstraete, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, EC JRC, Ispra, Italy

Pedro Viterbo, Land SAF, Instituto de Meteorologia, Lisbon, Portugal

Jean-Luc Widlowski, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, EC JRC, Ispra, Italy

Julian Wilson, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, EC JRC, Ispra, Italy

Reports

First Meeting 14-15 February 2007, EC JRC, Ispra, Italy

Last modified on Fri, 25 Jan 2013