Articles | Volume 29, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3435-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3435-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
The role of land–atmosphere coupling in subseasonal surface air temperature prediction across the contiguous United States
Yuna Lim
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, Maryland 20740, USA
Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
Andrea M. Molod
Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
Randal D. Koster
Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
Joseph A. Santanello
Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA
Related authors
No articles found.
Manisha Ganeshan, Dong L. Wu, Joseph A. Santanello, Jie Gong, Chi Ao, Panagiotis Vergados, and Kevin J. Nelson
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 18, 1389–1403, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1389-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-1389-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study explores the potential of two newly launched commercial Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) satellite missions for advancing Arctic lower-atmospheric studies. The products have a good sampling of the lower Arctic atmosphere and are useful to derive the planetary boundary layer (PBL) height during winter months. This research is a step towards closing the observation gap in polar regions due to the decomissioning of Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC-1) GNSS RO mission and the lack of high-latitude coverage by its successor (COSMIC-2).
Abdullah A. Fahad, Andrea Molod, Krzysztof Wargan, Dimitris Menemenlis, Patrick Heimbach, Atanas Trayanov, Ehud Strobach, and Lawrence Coy
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1892797/v2, https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1892797/v2, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
This study used a 1-degree GEOS-MITgcm coupled GCM to analyze the Northern Hemisphere (NH) stratospheric temperature response to external forcing. Results show the NH polar stratospheric temperature increased from 1992 to 2000, contrary to the expectation of stratospheric cooling with rising CO2. However, from 2000 to 2020, the temperature decreased. The study concluded that changes in CO2 and Ozone drive the meridional eddy transport of heat, dictating polar stratospheric temperature behavior.
Ci Song, Daniel McCoy, Andrea Molod, and Donifan Barahona
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4108, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4108, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
The uncertainty in how clouds respond to aerosols limits our ability to predict future warming. This study uses a global reanalysis data, GiOcean, which includes a detailed treatment of cloud microphysics to represent interactions between aerosols and clouds. We evaluate the response of warm clouds to aerosols in GiOcean by comparing variables important for cloud properties from GiOcean with available spaceborne remote sensing observations.
Payal R. Makhasana, Joseph A. Santanello, Patricia M. Lawston-Parker, and Joshua K. Roundy
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 5087–5106, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-5087-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-5087-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study examines how soil moisture impacts land–atmosphere interactions, crucial for understanding Earth's water and energy cycles. The study used two different soil moisture datasets from the SMAP satellite to measure how strongly soil moisture influences the atmosphere's ability to retain moisture (called coupling strength). Leveraging SMAP soil moisture data and integrating multiple atmospheric datasets, the study offers new insights into the dynamics of land–atmosphere coupling strength.
Gaoyun Wang, Rong Fu, Yizhou Zhuang, Paul A. Dirmeyer, Joseph A. Santanello, Guiling Wang, Kun Yang, and Kaighin McColl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 3857–3868, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3857-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-3857-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This study investigates the influence of lower-tropospheric humidity on land–atmosphere coupling (LAC) during warm seasons in the US Southern Great Plains. Using radiosonde data and a buoyancy model, we find that elevated LT humidity is crucial for generating afternoon precipitation events under dry soil conditions not accounted for by conventional LAC indices. This underscores the importance of considering LT humidity in understanding LAC over dry soil during droughts in the SGP.
Kirsten L. Findell, Zun Yin, Eunkyo Seo, Paul A. Dirmeyer, Nathan P. Arnold, Nathaniel Chaney, Megan D. Fowler, Meng Huang, David M. Lawrence, Po-Lun Ma, and Joseph A. Santanello Jr.
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 1869–1883, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1869-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-1869-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
We outline a request for sub-daily data to accurately capture the process-level connections between land states, surface fluxes, and the boundary layer response. This high-frequency model output will allow for more direct comparison with observational field campaigns on process-relevant timescales, enable demonstration of inter-model spread in land–atmosphere coupling processes, and aid in targeted identification of sources of deficiencies and opportunities for improvement of the models.
Patricia Lawston-Parker, Joseph A. Santanello Jr., and Nathaniel W. Chaney
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 2787–2805, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-2787-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-2787-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Irrigation has been shown to impact weather and climate, but it has only recently been considered in prediction models. Prescribing where (globally) irrigation takes place is important to accurately simulate its impacts on temperature, humidity, and precipitation. Here, we evaluated three different irrigation maps in a weather model and found that the extent and intensity of irrigated areas and their boundaries are important drivers of weather impacts resulting from human practices.
Elias C. Massoud, Lauren Andrews, Rolf Reichle, Andrea Molod, Jongmin Park, Sophie Ruehr, and Manuela Girotto
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 147–171, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-147-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-147-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
In this study, we benchmark the forecast skill of the NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System subseasonal-to-seasonal (GEOS-S2S version 2) hydrometeorological forecasts in the High Mountain Asia (HMA) region. Hydrometeorological forecast skill is dependent on the forecast lead time, the memory of the variable within the physical system, and the validation dataset used. Overall, these results benchmark the GEOS-S2S system’s ability to forecast HMA hydrometeorology on the seasonal timescale.
Hector S. Torres, Patrice Klein, Jinbo Wang, Alexander Wineteer, Bo Qiu, Andrew F. Thompson, Lionel Renault, Ernesto Rodriguez, Dimitris Menemenlis, Andrea Molod, Christopher N. Hill, Ehud Strobach, Hong Zhang, Mar Flexas, and Dragana Perkovic-Martin
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 8041–8058, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-8041-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-8041-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Wind work at the air-sea interface is the scalar product of winds and currents and is the transfer of kinetic energy between the ocean and the atmosphere. Using a new global coupled ocean-atmosphere simulation performed at kilometer resolution, we show that all scales of winds and currents impact the ocean dynamics at spatial and temporal scales. The consequential interplay of surface winds and currents in the numerical simulation motivates the need for a winds and currents satellite mission.
Melissa Ruiz-Vásquez, Sungmin O, Alexander Brenning, Randal D. Koster, Gianpaolo Balsamo, Ulrich Weber, Gabriele Arduini, Ana Bastos, Markus Reichstein, and René Orth
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1451–1471, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1451-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1451-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Subseasonal forecasts facilitate early warning of extreme events; however their predictability sources are not fully explored. We find that global temperature forecast errors in many regions are related to climate variables such as solar radiation and precipitation, as well as land surface variables such as soil moisture and evaporative fraction. A better representation of these variables in the forecasting and data assimilation systems can support the accuracy of temperature forecasts.
Ehud Strobach, Andrea Molod, Donifan Barahona, Atanas Trayanov, Dimitris Menemenlis, and Gael Forget
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2309–2324, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2309-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2309-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The Green's functions methodology offers a systematic, easy-to-implement, computationally cheap, scalable, and extendable method to tune uncertain parameters in models accounting for the dependent response of the model to a change in various parameters. Herein, we successfully show for the first time that long-term errors in earth system models can be considerably reduced using Green's functions methodology. The method can be easily applied to any model containing uncertain parameters.
Huisheng Bian, Eunjee Lee, Randal D. Koster, Donifan Barahona, Mian Chin, Peter R. Colarco, Anton Darmenov, Sarith Mahanama, Michael Manyin, Peter Norris, John Shilling, Hongbin Yu, and Fanwei Zeng
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14177–14197, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14177-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14177-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The study using the NASA Earth system model shows ~2.6 % increase in burning season gross primary production and ~1.5 % increase in annual net primary production across the Amazon Basin during 2010–2016 due to the change in surface downward direct and diffuse photosynthetically active radiation by biomass burning aerosols. Such an aerosol effect is strongly dependent on the presence of clouds. The cloud fraction at which aerosols switch from stimulating to inhibiting plant growth occurs at ~0.8.
Andrew Tangborn, Belay Demoz, Brian J. Carroll, Joseph Santanello, and Jeffrey L. Anderson
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 1099–1110, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1099-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-1099-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
Accurate prediction of the planetary boundary layer is essential to both numerical weather prediction (NWP) and pollution forecasting. This paper presents a methodology to combine these measurements with the models through a statistical data assimilation approach that calculates the correlation between the PBLH and variables like temperature and moisture in the model. The model estimates of these variables can be improved via this method, and this will enable increased forecast accuracy.
Cited articles
Abdolghafoorian, A. and Dirmeyer, P. A.: Validating the land–atmosphere coupling behavior in weather and climate models using observationally based global products, J. Hydrometeorol., 22, 1507–1523, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-20-0183.1, 2021.
Ardilouze, C., Batté, L., Decharme, B., and Déqué, M.: On the link between summer dry bias over the U.S. Great Plains and seasonal temperature prediction skill in a dynamical forecast system, Weather Forecast., 34, 1161–1172, https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-19-0023.1, 2019.
Benson, D. O. and Dirmeyer, P. A.: The soil moisture – surface flux relationship as a factor for extreme heat predictability in subseasonal to seasonal forecasts, J. Clim., 36, 6375–6392, https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-22-0447.1, 2023.
Bolton, D.: The computation of equivalent potential temperature, Mon. Weather Rev., 108, 1046–1053, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1980)108<1046:TCOEPT>2.0.CO;2, 1980.
Budyko, M. I.: Heat Balance of the Earth's Surface, Gidrometeoizdat, Leningrad, 255 pp., 1956.
Buizza, R. and Palmer, T. N.: Impact of ensemble size on ensemble prediction, Mon. Weather Rev., 126, 2503–2518, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1998)126<2503:IOESOE>2.0.CO;2, 1998.
Chin, M., Ginoux, P., Kinne, S., Torres, O., Holben, B. N., Duncan, B. N., Martin, R. V., Logan, J. A., Higurashi, A., and Nakajima T.: Tropospheric aerosol optical thickness from the GOCART model and comparisons with satellite and Sun photometer measurements, J. Atmos. Sci., 59, 461–483, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(2002)059<0461:TAOTFT>2.0.CO;2, 2002.
Dirmeyer, P. A.: The terrestrial segment of soil moisture-climate coupling, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L16702, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011GL048268, 2011.
Dirmeyer, P. A.: Characteristics of the water cycle and land-atmosphere interactions from a comprehensive reforecast and reanalysis dataset: CFSv2, Clim. Dynam., 41, 1083–1097, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1866-x, 2013.
Dirmeyer, P. A., Halder, S., and Bombardi, R: On the Harvest of Predictability from Land States in a Global Forecast Model, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 123, 13111–13127, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JD029103, 2018.
Dirmeyer, P. A., Balsamo, G., Blyth, E. M., Morrison, R., and Cooper, H. M.: Land-atmosphere interactions exacerbated the drought and heatwave over northern Europe during summer 2018, AGU Advances, 2, e2020AV000283, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020AV000283, 2021.
Domeisen, D. I. V., Butler, A. H., Charlton-Perez, A. J., Ayarzagüena, B., Baldwin, M. P., Dunn-Sigouin, E., Furtado, J. C., Garfinkel, C. I., Hitchcock, P., Karpechko, A. Y., Kim, H., Knight, J., Lang, A. L., Lim, E.-P., Marshall, A., Roff, G., Schwartz, C., Simpson, I. R., Son, S.-W., and Taguchi, M.: The Role of the Stratosphere in Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction: 1. Predictability of the Stratosphere, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 125, e2019JD030920, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030920, 2020.
Ducharne, A., Koster, R. D., Suarez, M. J., Stieglitz, M., and Kumar, P.: A catchment-based approach to modeling land surface processes in a general circulation model: 2. Parameter estimation and model demonstration, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 105, 24823–24838, https://doi.org/10.1029/2000jd900328, 2000.
Entekhabi D., Njoku, E. G., O'Neill, P. E., Kellogg, K. H., Crow, W. T., Edelstein, W. N., Entin, J. K., Goodman, S. D., Jackson, T. J., Johnson, J., Kimball, J., Piepmeier, J. R., Koster, R. D., Martin, N., McDonald, K. C., Moghaddam, M., Moran, S., Reichle, R., Shi, J. C., Spencer, M. W., Thurman, S. W., Tsang, L., and van Zyl, J.: The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission, Proc. IEEE, 98, 704–716, https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2010.2043918, 2010.
Fischer, E. M., Seneviratne, S. I., Lüthi, D., and Schär, C.: Contribution of land-atmosphere coupling to recent European summer heat waves, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L06707, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL029068, 2007.
Gelaro, R., McCarty, W., Suárez, M. J., Todling, R., Molod, A., Takacs, L., Randles, C. A., Darmenov, A., Bosilovich, M. G., Reichle, R., Wargan, K., Coy, L., Cullather, R., Draper, C., Akella, S., Buchard, V., Conaty, A., da Silva, A. M., Gu, W., Kim, G.-K., Koster, R., Lucchesi, R., Merkova, D., Nielsen, J. E., Partyka, G., Pawson, S., Putman, W., Rienecker, M., Schubert, S. D., Sienkiewicz, M., and Zhao, B.: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), J. Clim., 30, 5419–5454, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0758.1, 2017 (code is available at https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?project=MERRA-2, last access: 28 July 2025).
Griffies, S. M.: Elements of the Modular Ocean Model (MOM): 2012 release. GFDL Ocean Group Tech. Rep. 7, NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, 618 pp., 2012.
Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Hirahara, S., Horányi, A., Muñoz-Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Abdalla, S., Abellan, X., Balsamo, G., Bechtold, P., Biavati, G., Bidlot, J., Bonavita, M., De Chiara, G., Dahlgren, P., Dee D., Diamantakis, M., Dragani, R., Flemming, J., Forbes, R., Fuentes, M., Geer, A., Haimberger, L., Healy, S., Hogan, R. J., Hólm, E., Janisková, M., Keeley, S., Laloyaux, P., Lopez, P., Lupu, C., Radnoti, G., de Rosnay, P. , Rozum, I., Vamborg, F., Villaume S., and Thépaut, J. N.: The ERA5 global reanalysis, Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 146, 1999–2049, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803, 2020 (data set is available at https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/d633000/, last access: 28 July 2025).
Hunke, E. W.: Lipscomb the Los Alamos Sea Ice Model, documentation and software manual version 4.0, Tech. Rep., Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2008.
Klein, S. A., Jiang, X., Boyle, J., Malyshev, S., and Xie, S.: Diagnosis of the summertime warm and dry bias over the U.S. southern Great Plains in the GFDL climate model using a weather forecasting approach, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L18805, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL027567, 2006.
Koster, R. D., Suarez, M. J., Ducharne, A., Stieglitz, M., and Kumar, P.: A catchment-based approach to modeling land surface processes in a general circulation model: 1. Model structure, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 105, 24809–24822, https://doi.org/10.1029/2000JD900327, 2000.
Koster, R. D., Dirmeyer, P. A., Guo, Z., Bonan, G., Chan, E., Cox, P., Gordon, C. T., Kanae, S., Kowalczyk, E., Lawrence, D., Liu, P., Lu, C.-H., Malyshev, S., McAvaney, B, Mitchell, K., Mocko, D., Oki, T., Oleson, K., Pitman, A., Sud, Y. C., Taylor, C. M., Verseghy, D., Vasic, R., Xue, Y., and Yamada, T.: Regions of Strong Coupling Between Soil Moisture and Precipitation, Science, 305, 1138–1140, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1100217, 2004.
Koster, R. D., Guo, Z., Dirmeyer, P. A., Bonan, G., Chan, E., Cox, P., Davies, H., Gordon, C. T., Kanae, S., Kowalczyk, E., Lawrence, D., Liu, P., Lu, C.-H., Malyshev, S., McAvaney, B., Mitchell, K., Mocko, D., Oki, T., Oleson, K. W., Pitman, A., Sud, Y. C., Taylor, C. M., Verseghy, D., Vasic, R., Xue, Y., and Yamada, T.: GLACE: The Global Land-Atmosphere Coupling Experiment, Part I: Overview, J. Hydrometeorol., 7, 590–610, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM510.1, 2006.
Koster, R. D., Schubert, S. D., DeAngelis, A. M., Molod, A. M., and Mahanama, S. P.: Using a simple water balance framework to quantify the impact of soil moisture initialization on subseasonal evapotranspiration and air temperature forecasts, J. Hydrometeorol., 21, 1705–1722, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-20-0007.1, 2020.
Koster, R. D., DeAngelis, A. M., Schubert, S. D., and Molod, A. M.: Asymmetry in subseasonal surface air temperature forecast error with respect to soil moisture initialization, J. Hydrometeorol., 22, 2505–2519, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-21-0022.1, 2021.
Koster, R. D., Feldman, A. F., Holmes, T. R. H., Anderson, M. C., Crow, W. T., and Hain, C.: Estimating Hydrological Regimes from Observational Soil Moisture, Evapotranspiration, and Air Temperature Data, J. Hydrometeorol., 25, 495–513, https://doi.org/10.1175/jhm-d-23-0140.1, 2024.
Lim, Y., Son, S.-W., and Kim, D.: MJO prediction skill of the subseasonal-to-seasonal prediction models, J. Clim., 31, 4075–4094, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0545.1, 2018.
Mariotti, A., Baggett, C., Barnes, E. A., Becker, E., Butler, A., Collins, D. C., Dirmeyer, P. A., Ferranti, L., Johnson, N. C., Jones, J., Kirtman, B. P., Lang, A. L., Molod, A., Newman, M., Robertson, A. W., Schubert, S., Waliser, D. E., and Albers, J.: Windows of opportunity for skillful forecasts subseasonal to seasonal and beyond, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 101, E608–E625, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0326.1, 2020.
Molod, A., Salmun, H., and Waugh, D. W.: The Impact on a GCM Climate of an Extended Mosaic Technique for the Land-Atmosphere Coupling, J. Clim., 17, 3877–3891, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<3877:TIOAGC>2.0.CO;2, 2004.
Molod, A., Takacs, L., Suarez, M., and Bacmeister, J.: Development of the GEOS-5 atmospheric general circulation model: evolution from MERRA to MERRA2, Geosci. Model Dev., 8, 1339–1356, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-8-1339-2015, 2015.
Molod, A., Hackert, E., Vikhliaev, Y., Zhao, B., Barahona, D., Vernieres, G., Borovikov, A., Kovach, R. M., Marshak, J., Schubert, S., Li, Z., Lim, Y.-K., Andrews, L. C., Cullather, R., Koster, R., Achuthavarier, D., Carton, J., Coy, L., Friere, J. L. M., Longo, K. M., Nakada, K., and Pawson, S.: GEOS-S2S Version 2: The GMAO High-Resolution Coupled Model and Assimilation System for Seasonal Prediction, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 125, e2019JD031767, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD031767, 2020.
Pegion, K., Kirtman, B. P., Becker, E., Collins, D. C., LaJoie, E., Burgman, R., Bell, R., DelSole, T., Min, D., Zhu, Y., Li, W., Sinsky, E., Guan, H., Gottschalck, J., Metzger, E. J., Barton, N. P., Achuthavarier, D., Marshak, J., Koster, R. D., Lin, H., Gagnon, N., Bell, M., Tippett, M. K., Robertson, A. W., Sun, S., Benjamin, S. G., Green, B. W., Bleck, R., and Kim, H.: The Subseasonal Experiment (SUBX): A Multimodel Subseasonal Prediction Experiment, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 100, 2043–2060, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0270.1, 2019.
Reichle, R. H., De Lannoy, G. J. M., Liu, Q., Ardizzone, J. V., Colliander, A., Conaty, A., Crow, W., Jackson, T. J., Jones, L. A., Kimball, J. S., Koster, R. D., Mahanama, S. P., Smith, E. B., Berg, A., Bircher, S., Bosch, D., Caldwell, T. G., Cosh, M., González-Zamora, Á, Holifield Collins, C. D., Jensen, K. H., Livingston, S., Lopez-Baeza, E., Martínez-Fernández, J., McNairn, H., Moghaddam, M., Pacheco, A., Pellarin, T., Prueger, J., Rowlandson, T., Seyfried, M., Starks, P., Su, Z., Thibeault, M., van der Velde, R., Walker, J., Wu, X., and Zeng, Y.: Assessment of the SMAP level-4 surface and root-zone soil moisture product using in situ measurements, J. Hydrometeorol., 18, 2621–2645, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-17-0063.1, 2017.
Rienecker, M. M., Suarez, M. J., Todling, R., Bacmeister, J., Takacs, L., Liu, H. -C., Gu, W., Sienkiewicz, M., Koster, R. D., Gelato, R., Stajner, I., and Nielsen, J. E.: The GEOS-5 data assimilation system: Documentation of versions 5.0.1 and 5.1.0, and 5.2.0, NASA Tech. Rep., Series on Global Modeling and Data Assimilation NASA/TM-2008-104606, 2008.
Roundy, J. K., Ferguson, C. R., and Wood, E. F.: Impact of land-atmospheric coupling in CFSv2 on drought prediction, Clim. Dynam., 43, 421–434, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1982-7, 2014.
Roy, T., J.Martinez, J. A., Herrera-Estrada, J. E., Zhang, Y., Dominguez, F., Berg, A., Ek, M., and Wood, E. F.: Role of Moisture Transport and Recycling in Characterizing Droughts: Perspectives from Two Recent U.S. Droughts and the CFSv2 System, J. Hydrometeorol., 20, 139–154, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-18-0159.1, 2019.
Santanello, J. A., Peters-Lidard, C. D., and Kumar, S. V.: Diagnosing the sensitivity of local land-atmosphere coupling via the soil moisture-boundary layer interaction, J. Hydrometeorol., 12, 766–786, https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-10-05014.1, 2011.
Santanello, J. A., Dirmeyer, P. A., Ferguson, C. R., Findell, K. L., Tawfik, A. B., Berg, A., Ek, M., Gentine, P., Guillod, B. P., van Heerwaarden, C., Roundy, J., and Wulfmeyer, V.: Land-atmosphere interactions: The LoCo perspective, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 99, 1253–1272, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0001.1, 2018.
Seneviratne, S. I., Corti, T., Davin, E. L., Hirschi, M., Jaeger, E. B., Lehner, I., Orlowsky, B., and Teuling, A. J.: Investigating soil moisture–climate interactions in a changing climate: A review, Earth Sci. Rev., 99, 125–161, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2010.02.004, 2010.
Seo, E. and Dirmeyer, P. A.: Understanding the diurnal cycle of land-atmosphere interactions from flux site observations, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 5411–5429, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-5411-2022, 2022.
Vitart, F. and Takaya, Y.: Lagged ensembles in sub-seasonal predictions, Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 147, 3227–3242, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4125, 2021.
Vitart, F., Ardilouze, C., Bonet, A., Brookshaw, A., Chen, M., Codorean, C., Déqué, M., Ferranti, L., Fucile, E., Fuentes, M., Hendon, H., Hodgson, J., Kang, H.-S., Kumar, A., Lin, H., Liu, G., Liu, X., Malguzzi, P., Mallas, I., Manoussakis, M., Mastrangelo, D., MacLachlan, C., McLean, P., Minami, A., Mladek, R., Nakazawa, T., Najm, S., Nie, Y., Rixen, M., Robertson, A. W., Ruti, P., Sun, C., Takaya, Y., Tolstykh, M., Venuti, F., Waliser, D., Woolnough, S., Wu, T., Won, D.-J., Xiao, H., Zaripov, R., and Zhang, L.: The Subseasonal to Seasonal (S2S) Prediction Project Database, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 98, 163–173, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0017.1, 2017.
Wang, L. and Robertson, A. W.: Week 3–4 predictability over the United States assessed from two operational ensemble prediction systems, Clim. Dynam., 52, 5861–5875, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-018-4484-9, 2019.
Yoon, D., Chen, J.-H., and Seo, E.: Contribution of land-atmosphere coupling in 2022 CONUS compound drought-heatwave events and implications for forecasting, Weather Clim. Extrem., 46, 100722, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2024.100722, 2024.
Short summary
To better utilize a given set of predictions, identifying “forecasts of opportunity” is valuable as this helps anticipate when prediction skill will be higher. This study shows that when strong land–atmosphere (L–A) coupling is detected 3–4 weeks into a forecast, the surface air temperature prediction skill at this lead time increases across the Midwest and northern Great Plains. Regions experiencing strong L–A coupling exhibit warm and dry anomalies, enhancing predictions of abnormally warm events.
To better utilize a given set of predictions, identifying “forecasts of opportunity” is valuable...