The role of the land surface (soil, vegetation, snow, permafrost and land ice) was discussed in detail in the SAR. The SAR noted that improvements had occurred in our ability to model land-surface processes but that there was
The role of the land surface (soil, vegetation, snow, permafrost and land ice) was discussed in detail in the SAR. The SAR noted that improvements had occurred in our ability to model land-surface processes but that there was a wide disparity among current land-surface schemes when forced by observed meteorology. Our physical understanding of the role of land-surface processes within the climate system was discussed in Chapter 7, Section 7.4.1.
Most of the effort in trying to reduce the disparity in land-surface scheme performance has been performed in offline intercomparisons under the auspices of International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Due to the difficulties in coupling multiple land-surface schemes into climate models (see Section 220.127.116.11) specific endeavours have been: the Project for the Intercomparison of Land-surface Parametrization Schemes (PILPS), the Global Soil Wetness Project (GSWP),