Land surface albedo and downwelling shortwave radiation from MSG geostationary satellite: Method for retrieval, validation, and application

The European Meteorological Satellite Organization (EUMETSAT) maintains a number of decentralized processing centers dedicated to different scientific themes. The Portuguese Meteorological Institute hosts the Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF). The primary objective of the LSA-SAF is to provide added value products for the meteorological and environmental science communities with main applications in the fields of climate modeling, environmental management, natural hazards management, and climate change detection. Since 2005 data from Meteosat Second Generation satellite are routinely processed in near real time by the LSA-SAF operational system in Lisbon. Presently, the delivered operational products comprise land surface albedo and temperature, shortwave and long-wave downwelling radiation fluxes, vegetation parameters and snow cover. After more than ten years (1999-2011) of research, development, and progressive operational activities, a summary of characteristics and performances of albedo and downwelling shortwave (DSSF) products is presented (Sections 2 and 3). The relevance of LSA-SAF albedo product is analyzed through a weather forecast model (ALADIN) in order to account for the inter-annual spatial and temporal variability (Section 4). The added value brought by the use of LSA-SAF shortwave and long-wave products is also diagnosed through SURFEX Land Surface Models (LSM) simulations with the surface temperature, the water content and the energy fluxes (Section 4). Perspectives of the LSA-SAF project are finally stressed (Section 5-6).