Affect of including satellite observed land surface conditions on the modeled energy and water budgets of the Murray-Darling basin Australia .

A regional climate model (RCM) based on WRF was used to simulate the regional climate and assess the water and energy budgets over the Murray-Darling basin, a former GEWEX Regional Hydroclimate Project. In the default set-up land surface albedo and vegetation fraction are prescribed using a monthly varying climatology, thus eliminating any inter-annual variability in these surface conditions. From 2002 through 2007 South-east Australia, including the Murray-Darling basin, experienced a sever drought. Satellite observed surface conditions (albedo and vegetation fraction) demonstrated significant inter-annual variation through this period. By performing a RCM simulation using the observed changes in surface conditions, instead of the default climatology, basin-wide changes in water and energy budgets are quantified.