Surface radiation budgets in support of the GEWEX Continental‐Scale International Project (GCIP) and the GEWEX Americas Prediction Project (GAPP), including the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) project

Abstract

In support of the World Climate Research Program GEWEX Continental‐Scale International Project (GCIP) and the GEWEX Americas Prediction Project (GAPP), real‐time estimates of shortwave radiative fluxes, both at the surface and at the top of the atmosphere, are being produced operationally by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service using observations from GOES images. The inference scheme has been developed at the Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland, and the atmospheric and surface model input parameters are produced and provided by the NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The radiative fluxes are being evaluated on hourly, daily, and monthly timescales using observations at about 50 stations. The satellite estimates have been found to be within acceptable limits during snow‐free periods, but the difficulty in detecting clouds over snow affects the accuracy during the winter season. In what follows, this activity is discussed, and evaluation results of the derived fluxes against ground observations for time periods of 1–2 years are presented.