NOAA UFS Land DA System: Land Surface Model Simulations

NOAA's Unified Forecast System Land Data Assimilation System provides offline simulations using the Noah-MP land surface model. The system uses the Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) software and requires near-surface atmospheric forcing data as input. Sample forcing and restart data are included in the data bucket.

Use Cases

• Validate land surface model physics based on the Noah-MP parameterizations described in the literature.
• Test data assimilation workflows using the JEDI framework mentioned in the description.
• Run offline land surface simulations using the provided sample forcing and restart data.
• Support operational weather model development by entities like NCEP, NCAR, and NASA as referenced.

Strengths

• Model is developed through community efforts involving NOAA, NCAR, NASA, and university groups.
• Includes sample forcing and restart data for initial testing.
• Technical documentation is available via a Land DA User's Guide and GitHub Discussions.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NOAA

Collection Method

Model simulations from the Noah-MP land surface model within the Unified Forecast System.