Acceleration of land surface model development over a decade of glass

An overview of initiatives that are a part of the Global Land Atmosphere System Study (GLASS), which has ushered in an era in which land surface models (LSM) for numerical weather and climate prediction now incorporate complex vegetation responses, detailed hydrology, dynamic snowpack evolution, urban processes, and more, is presented. A critical goal of GLASS is to expand from the uncoupled point-based (PILPS) and globally based (GSWP) evaluations to include simulations that are fully coupled with the atmosphere. GLASS includes Global Soil Wetness Project Phase (GSWP) in which the earlier GSWP-2 datasets will be extended forward to the present, enabling scientific progress toward attribution of recent changes to various components of the climate system, including the terrestrial component.