Meteo France

Meteo-France (MTF) is the French weather service. In CORE-CLIMAX, MTF is represented by its research centre CNRM (Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques). In addition to meteorological and climatic models, CNRM develops numerical tools linked to meteorology, including atmospheric chemistry, hydrology, agro-meteorology, in collaboration with national and international research partners. In particular, CNRM has developed the SURFEX surface modelling platform, designed to be coupled with both research and operational atmospheric and hydrological models. SURFEX is shared by many national meteorological centres in Europe and in North-Africa. SURFEX includes the ISBA-A-gs land surface model, able to simulate (in addition to soil moisture and evapotranspiration) LAI, fAPAR, vegetation biomass, and carbon storage. Also, SURFEX has the capability to assimilate satellite-derived biophysical variables (e.g. LAI, soil moisture) observations into the ISBA-A-gs model. Over France, the high-resolution (8km) SAFRAN atmospheric reanalysis can be used to perform long historical simulations of land ECVs with SURFEX. Finally, CNRM has long experience in using satellite data over land, and in transferring research to operations.