Abstract:
This data set contains a series of land surface parameters simulated
from the Mosaic land-surface model (LSM) for Phase 2 of the North
American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2). The data are in
1/8th degree grid spacing and range from Jan 1979 to the present.
The temporal resolution is hourly. The file format is WMO GRIB-1.
Details about the NLDAS-2
... configuration of the Mosaic LSM can be found in Xia et al. (2012).
Mosaic was developed by Koster and Suarez (1994, 1996) to account for
subgrid vegetation variability with a tile approach. Each vegetation
tile carries its own energy and water balance and soil moisture and
temperature. Each tile has three soil layers, with the first two in the
root zone. In NLDAS, Mosaic is configured to support a maximum of 10
tiles per grid cell with a 5% cutoff that ignores vegetation classes
covering less than 5% of the cell. Additionally in NLDAS, all tiles of
Mosaic in a grid cell have a predominant soil type and three soil layers
with fixed thickness values of 10, 30, and 160 cm (hence constant
rooting depth of 40 cm and constant total column depth of 200 cm).
The Mosaic LSM was forced by the hourly NLDAS-2 forcing "File A" files,
and contains thirty-seven fields. The data set applies a user-defined
parameter table to indicate the contents and parameter number. The
following table shows a list of parameters, their Product Definition
Section (PDS) IDs and units.
PDS_IDs:Short_Name:Full_Name [Unit]
179:ACONDsfc:Aerodynamic conductance [m/s]
84:ALBDOsfc:Albedo [%]
162:ARAINsfc:Rainfall (unfrozen precipitation) [kg/m^2]
161:ASNOWsfc:Snowfall (frozen precipitation) [kg/m^2]
148:AVSFTsfc:Average surface skin temperature [K]
234:BGRUNsfc:Subsurface runoff (baseflow) [kg/m^2]
181:CCONDsfc:Canopy conductance [m/s]
223:CNWATsfc:Plant canopy surface water [kg/m^2]
205:DLWRFsfc:Longwave radiation flux downwards (surface) [W/m^2]
204:DSWRFsfc:Shortwave radiation flux downwards (surface) [W/m^2]
199:EVBSsfc:Direct evaporation from bare soil [W/m^2]
200:EVCWsfc:Canopy water evaporation [W/m^2]
57:EVPsfc:Total evapotranspiration [kg/m^2]
155:GFLUXsfc:Ground heat flux [W/m^2]
182:LAIsfc:Leaf area index (0-9) [unitless]
121:LHTFLsfc:Latent heat flux [W/m^2]
207:MSTAV0_40cm:0-40 cm root zone Moisture availability [%]
207:MSTAV0_200cm:0-200 cm total column Moisture availability [%]
112:NLWRSsfc:Longwave radiation flux net (surface) [W/m^2]
111:NSWRSsfc:Shortwave radiation flux net (surface) [W/m^2]
198:SBSNOsfc:Sublimation (evaporation from snow) [W/m^2]
122:SHTFLsfc:Sensible heat flux [W/m^2]
66:SNODsfc:Snow depth [m]
229:SNOHFsfc:Snow phase-change heat flux [W/m^2]
99:SNOMsfc:Snow melt [kg/m^2]
238:SNOWCsfc:Snow cover [fraction]
86:SOILM0_10cm:0-10 cm layer 1 Soil moisture content [kg/m^2]
86:SOILM0_40cm:0-40 cm root zone Soil moisture content [kg/m^2]
86:SOILM0_100cm:0-100 cm top 1 meter Soil moisture content [kg/m^2]
86:SOILM0_200cm:0-200 cm total column Soil moisture content [kg/m^2]
86:SOILM10_40cm:10-40 cm layer 2 Soil moisture content [kg/m^2]
86:SOILM40_200cm:40-200 cm layer 3 Soil moisture content [kg/m^2]
235:SSRUNsfc:Surface runoff (non-infiltrating) [kg/m^2]
210:TRANSsfc:Transpiration [W/m^2]
85:TSOILdeep:Deep soil temperature [K]
87:VEGsfc:Vegetation [fraction]
65:WEASDsfc:Accumulated snow water-equivalent [kg/m^2]
WGRIB or other GRIB reader is required to read the files.
For more information, please see: http://ldas.gsfc.nasa.gov/faq/#Tools 
