Assessing impacts of integrating MODIS vegetation data in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model coupled to two different canopy-resistance approaches

The impact of 8-day-averaged data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor-namely, the 1-km leaf area index, absorbed photosynthetic radiation, and land-use data-is investigated for use in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for regional weather prediction. These high-resolution, near-real-time MODIS data are hypothesized to enhance the representation of land–atmosphere interactions and to potentially improve the WRF model forecast skill for temperature, surface moisture, surface fluxes, and soil temperature. To test this hypothesis, the impact of using MODIS-based land surface data on surface energy and water budgets was assessed within the “Noah” land surface model with two different canopy-resistance schemes. An ensemble of six model experiments was conducted using the WRF model for a typical summertime episode over the U.S. southern Great Plains that occurred during the International H₂O Project (IHOP_2002) field experiment. The six model experiments were statistically analyzed and showed some degree of improvement in surface latent heat flux and sensible heat flux, as well as surface temperature and moisture, after land use, leaf area index, and green vegetation fraction data were replaced by remotely sensed data. There was also an improvement in the WRF-simulated temperature and boundary layer moisture with MODIS data in comparison with the default U.S. Geological Survey land-use and leaf area index inputs. Overall, analysis suggests that recalibration and improvements to both the input data and the land model help to improve estimation of surface and soil parameters and boundary layer moisture and led to improvement in simulating convection in WRF runs. Incorporating updated land conditions provided the most notable improvements, and the mesoscale model performance could be further enhanced when improved land surface schemes become available.