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University of Maryland
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University of Maryland
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Information on the gain or loss of radiant energy at the Earth's surface is needed to address problems related to climate trends, hydrologic and biogeophysical modelling, solar energy applications, and agriculture. In recent years, the University of Maryland, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Research Group, has been developing methods to infer components of surface radiative fluxes from satellite observations. Details of past and current activities are provided as follows:
This is a first attempt to provide the user community with surface radiation budget (SRB) information over the United States, as generated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS). This activity is in support of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Continental Scale International Project (GCIP) and the GEWEX Americas Prediction Project (GAPP).
Under the joint NOAA/NASA PATHFINDER activity, uniform, long term data sets from observations made from numerous satellites, are being prepared. Of particular interest are the ISCCP D1 and DX data (ISCCP),as gridded to 2.5 degree,and as sampled at 30 km resolution,respectively. Surface radiative fluxes at 2.5 and 0.5 degree spatial resolution, produced under the PATHFINDER program at the University of Maryland, will be provided at this Web site.
In the framework of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate and Global Change Program objectives to improve the ability to observe, understand, and predict climate and its response to changes in global environment, an activity to derive Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) from satellite observations, was undertaken. Capabilities were developed to derive PAR on global scale from satellite observations. At this Web site, more information on this activity and selected data sets, are provided.
Under this project, validation activity in a desert ecroachment zone of sub-Sahel Africa was undertaken, in collaboration with African scientists. The site is located on the campus of the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, in the transition zone between the Sahara desert and the savanna zone of upper Nigeria. This is a climatically important region due to its location in a desert transition zone and because of the influence of the dusty Harmattan wind which is persistent for prolonged periods of time, and characterized by steady dusty conditions with high aerosol loading. Observations are made of surface radiative fluxes, as well as aerosol optical depth, as part of the AERONET network.
The Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) is an international research project led by Brazil. The world's tropical forests are under major stress of conversion to various forms of land use. NASA currently provides two components of the LBA program. One deals with the ecology of the region and the other deals with the hydrologic cycle. Under the hydrology component we are working towards the improvement of understanding the hydrologic cycle of this region. Spaceborne remote sensing capabilities will help to define the basin scale forcing functions, and determine how the basin functions as a regional entity. We plan to provide information on radiative fluxes that are necessary to advance the understanding of the role of water in land-atmosphere interactions; develop improved techniques for providing such information that takes into account deforestation in Rondonia and information on biomass burning in the Amazon Basin; provide data to evaluate land surface parametrization, and to test their implications for global climate and weather forecast models.
The Coordinated Energy and water cycle Observations Project (CEOP) is a merger of the previous World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Global Energy and Water-cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Hydrometeorology Panel (GHP) and the 'Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period' ('CEOP'), which was an element of WCRP initiated by GEWEX. Among the key objectives of CEOP are: production of consistent research quality data of the Earth's energy budget and water cycle and their variability on interannual to decadal time scales, for use in climate system analysis and model development and evaluation; and improve the predictive capability for key water and energy cycle variables. The objective of the current project is to develop capabilities to derive atmospheric radiative fluxes for selected CEOP regions as a step towards capabilities to test hydrological model transferability. Addressed will be issues related to differences in the satellite observing systems, issues related to the uniqueness of the various climatic regions, and incorporated will be model improvements and updated auxiliary information.
Atlantic
The objective of this project is to evaluate, as accurately as possible, the total surface momentum, energy and mass budgets over the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean, and determine uncertainties. Focus of the project: Development of satellite-based estimates of surface heat flux components in the Atlantic Ocean for a period for which all flux components are available and develop a merging strategy initially, for a three year period; set the stage for an extension to ten years; use most recent and improved observations to assess accuracies in the longer term time series; assess the impact of aerosols on radiative fluxes over the Atlantic Ocean
