Articles | Volume 12, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1703-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-1703-2019
Model evaluation paper
 | 
29 Apr 2019
Model evaluation paper |  | 29 Apr 2019

Evaluating the Met Office Unified Model land surface temperature in Global Atmosphere/Land 3.1 (GA/L3.1), Global Atmosphere/Land 6.1 (GA/L6.1) and limited area 2.2 km configurations

Jennifer K. Brooke, R. Chawn Harlow, Russell L. Scott, Martin J. Best, John M. Edwards, Jean-Claude Thelen, and Mark Weeks

Data sets

AmeriFlux data at half-hourly resolution AmeriFlux data repository http://ameriflux.lbl.gov/

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Short summary
This paper evaluates a significant cold land surface temperature bias in semi-arid regions in the Met Office Unified Model when compared with satellite observations. Sparse vegetation canopies are not well represented in ancillary datasets, in particular regions of cold bias are correlated with low bare soil cover fractions. The study demonstrates the difficulties in modelling land surface temperatures that match state-of-the-art satellite retrievals required for operational data assimilation.