North American Land Data Assimilation (NLDAS) is being developed that will lead to more accurate reanalysis and forecast simulations by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Specifically, this system will reduce the errors in the stores of soil moisture and energy which are often present in NWP models and which degrade the accuracy of forecasts. NLDAS is currently running retrospectively and in near real-time on a 1/8th-degree grid resolution. The system is currently forced by terrestrial (NLDAS) precipitation data, space-based radiation data and numerical model output. In order to create an optimal scheme, the projects involve several LSMs, many sources of data, and several institutions. Data from the project can be accessed on the NLDAS forcing pages, the NLDAS model output pages, as well as on the NLDAS Realtime Image Generator page. This is an official NLDAS website which includes NLDAS overview, land surface characteristics parameters, forcing data, land models, model output, publications, useful links, and NLDAS drought monitor.

This webpage originally developed and constructed by Brian Cosgrove, Matthew Rodell, and Charles Alonge for NASA GFSC. It was transitioned to NOAA/NCEP/EMC in June 2008. Now this web is maintained and updated by Michael Ek and Youlong Xia for NLDAS Project.