Local Land-Atmosphere Coupling (Invited)

The GEWEX Land-Atmosphere System Study / Local Coupling (GLASS/LoCo) project seeks to understand the role of local land-atmosphere coupling in the evolution of surface fluxes, and land and atmospheric state variables including clouds. The theme of land-atmosphere interaction is a research area that is rapidly developing; new research has evolved in modeling and observing the degree of land-atmosphere coupling on local scales. Questions of interest are (1) what is the nature and strength of this coupling, and (2) how does this change, i.e. for different temporal and spatial scales, geographic regions, and changing climates. As such, this is an important issue on both weather and climate time scales. The GLASS/LoCo working group is investigating the role of surface hydrology (e.g. soil moisture) and interaction with the evolving atmospheric boundary layer and boundary-layer (top) entrainment and boundary-layer clouds, from both the observational perspective and using coupled land-atmosphere models.