• Land model development benefits from and motivates coordinated field experiments (e.g., Sellers et al., 1992).
• These developments help the establishment of a variety of important international research programs, such as the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), the (earlier) Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrological Cycle (Kabat et al., 2004), and (the successor to GEWEX) the integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Process Study (iLEAPS).1
• These programs, in turn, substantially accelerate the progress in coordinated field experiments over different continents, covering all major ecosystems; land model development, including the explicit consideration of vegetation stomatal resistance and photosynthesis as well as the land atmosphere exchanges of energy, water, and trace gases (e.g., carbon, nitrogen); and improved understanding of land-atmosphere coupling (e.g., Koster et al., 2006; Zeng et al., 2010).
There are four clear short-term needs related to urban meteorology:
1. maximize observational data in different categories from diverse sources,
2. regularly update metadata of the urban observations using standardized urban protocols,
3. continue and expand international urban model intercomparisons over urban areas, and
4. develop and apply best practices to strengthen the dialog between urban meteorologists and end user communities.
The second and third short-term needs are related to research needs; the fourth one is related to the need for translating established science to practical applications for end users, while the first one is related to both research and translation needs.
One significant need in urban meteorology is for improved high spatial and temporal resolution observational data. To help address this need, short-term field experiment and long-term monitoring data would consist of