Abstract: Land surface models are an essential part of operational Earth System models. Without a representation of the Earth’s surfaces, incoming energy and water could not be partitioned and there would be no land-atmosphere exchange regulating weather and climate patterns, without which atmospheric models could not operate. In addition, atmospheric composition models would be without their emitting source. Moreover, disasters (i.e. events that impact humans or their infrastructure) are bound to occur on land. However, while atmospheric models have seen a lot of investment over the past 60 years, a concerted effort to lift land surface models to the same sophistication only started in the early 2000s.
In this talk, I will take a brief look back at how land surface models, in particular as part of operational forecasting models, evolved over the past decades, before reviewing where we are at right now and discussing where we have gaps. The last part of the talk will look into where we need to improve the models and why, and how this can be achieved, especially in light of increasing numbers of satellites and the growth of data-driven methodologies – again with a strong focus on operational medium-range forecasts to seasonal projections.
Bio: Christoph Rüdiger received his PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia, on the topic of streamflow and satellite data assimilation for streamflow predictions. After several years at the French weather service as a postdoctoral fellow, he returned to Australia to lead the ground calibration and validation segments of two soil moisture satellite missions. He then became a professor for hydrology at Monash University, where he taught for over a decade, and supervised a range of PhD topics from hydrology to post-fire vegetation recovery observations. In 2021, he returned to his roots, joining the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to build a land surface modelling team. Since 2024, he has been the team leader for land modelling within the Research Department at ECMWF, working at the duty station in Bonn.
https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/who-we-are/staff-profiles/christoph-rudiger
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