The representation of landsurface‐atmosphere interaction in atmospheric general circulation models

In numerical models of global climate, there are a number of processes that cannot be resolved explicitly at the level of discretization that is computationally feasible. Such processes are parameterized according to simplified relationships and empirical formulae. Nevertheless the realism of the regional climates produced by the models is critically dependent on such processes. For illustration, we focus on landsurface atmosphere interaction and soil hydrology. In this paper we outline the influence of landsurface processes on climate and then follow to describe the various approaches to their modeling.