Impact of vegetation fraction from Indian geostationary satellite on short-range weather forecast

Indian economy is largely depending upon the agricultural productivity and thus influences the trade among the SAARC countries. High-resolution and good-quality regional weather forecasts are necessary for planners, resource managers, insurers and national agro-advisory services. In this study, high resolution updated land-surface state in terms of vegetation fraction (VF) from operational vegetation index products of Indian geostationary satellite (INSAT 3A) sensor (CCD) was utilized in numerical weather prediction (NWP) model (e.g. WRF) to investigate its impact on short-range weather forecast over the control run. Results showed that the updated vegetation fraction from INSAT 3A CCD improved the low-level 24 h temperature (∼18%) and moisture (∼10%) forecast in comparison to control run. The 24 h rainfall forecast was also improved (more than 5%) over central and southern India with the use of updated vegetation fraction compared to control experiment. INSAT 3A VF based experiment also showed a net improvement of 27% in surface sensible heat fluxes from WRF in comparison to control experiment when both were compared with area-averaged measurements from Large Aperture Scintillometer (LAS). This triggers the need of more and more use of realistic and updated land surface states through satellite remote sensing data as well as in situ micrometeorological measurements to improve the forecast quality, skill and consistency.