Validation of boundary layer parameters of climate model REMO: estimation of leaf area index from NOAA-AVHRR data for the Baltimos region

The preparation of time- and space-dependent input surface parameters for the climate model REMO was one task of the Baltimos project "Validation of Boundary Layer Parameters and Extension of Boundary conditions of Climate Model REMO". The leaf area index (LAI) is one of these parameters. It is used in REMO as defined value per month for each land-use class with a defined seasonal trend during the year. Since 1982 at the Institute of Meteorology of the Free University Berlin, a high-resolved AVHRR data set of the NOAA satellite has been available (1/100 degree, approximately 1 x 1 km at nadir in a geographic coordination system) (Koslowsky 1996). The vegetation periods of the years 1997 until 2001 were selected from the dataset to estimate the LAI within the Baltimos region on the basis of an algorithm by Sellers et al. (J Climate 9:706-737, 1996) and a modified United States Geological Survey (USGS) land-use classification. The calculated high-resolved NOAA LAI values were converted to the 1/6 degree grid of the REMO climate model. Then, they were compared to the fixed LAI values, which are used in the model.