The Land Information System

A global Land Information System (LIS; http://lis.gsfc.nasa.gov) has been developed that is capable of modeling land-atmosphere interactions at spatial resolutions down to 1km. LIS consists of an ensemble of land surface models (e.g., CLM, Noah, VIC) run offline using satellite-based precipitation, radiation and surface parameters, in addition to model-derived surface meteorology. Satellite-based surface parameters include AVHRR-based or MODIS-based land cover and Leaf Area Index (LAI), and MODIS-based albedo and emissivity. The high spatial resolution of LIS, enabled by the use of high performance computing and communications technologies, is capable of resolving mesoscale features, including urban areas, lakes, and agricultural fields. We will present results demonstrating LIS applied at ¼ degree, 5km and 1km resolutions. Several demonstration case studies conducted with LIS demonstrate that using LIS has significant advantages for predicting land surface temperatures and surface water and energy fluxes.