Land surface process modeling and passive microwave remote sensing of Arctic tundra regions

A biophysical land surface process/radiobrightness model is being developed to improve understanding of and the ability to estimate snow-free land-atmosphere energy and moisture fluxes and near-surface temperature and moisture conditions in arctic tundra regions. The model is similar to one recently validated for prairie grassland regions and is designed to provide a linkage to satellite radiobrightness observations for remote monitoring and data assimilation applications in climatology and meteorology. A comparison of model predictions during the snow-free season and field observations is presented. The field observations are from the Radiobrightness Energy Balance Experiment-3, a yearlong ground-based microwave brightness and micrometeorological experiment on the North Slope of Alaska. Comparisons with collocated and contemporaneous SSM/I data are also discussed, with attention given to atmospheric and scaling-related effects.