Shunlin Liang and John Townshend receive NOAA award entitled “Land Surface Thermal Infrared Emissivity Database Development and Modeling for Operational Weather Prediction and Climate Models” The project has three year’s of funding for a total of $414,000.

Land surface thermal infrared (IR) emissivity is a critical variable in characterizing the lower atmospheric boundary condition for successful assimilation of satellite thermal-IR observations into the numerical weather prediction and climate models. It has been treated very approximately by various operational models. This project will develop an integrated forward land surface thermal-IR radiative transfer emissivity model that will be coupled into the General Circulation Model for numerical weather forecast and climate study. A surface thermal-IR emissivity database will be developed for modeling and validation.