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Skin Temperature Data Assimilation

Land surface (or skin) temperature assimilation is operational within the GMAO Data Assimilation System (DAS). Three-hourly global estimates of land surface temperature fields are currently being produced. Customers for this data product include the NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument team. Current development efforts concern the feedback of skin temperature assimilation on the atmosphere. Research is also underway to transition the skin temperature assimilation from its current scheme, which is based on static error covariances, to the newly developed GMAO EnKF land assimilation system, which uses dynamic error covariances.