Retrieving surface parameters for climate models from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)‐Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) albedo products

We present a computer‐efficient software package enabling us to assimilate operational remote‐sensing flux products into a state‐of‐the‐art two‐stream radiation transfer scheme suitable for climate models. This package implements the adjoint and Hessian codes, generated using automatic differentiation techniques, of a cost function balancing (1) the deviation from the a priori knowledge on the model parameter values and (2) the misfit between the observed remote‐sensing fluxes and the two‐stream model simulations. The individual weights of these contributions are specified notably via covariance matrices of the uncertainties in the a priori knowledge on the model parameters and the measurements. The proposed procedure delivers a Gaussian approximation of the PDFs of the retrieved model parameter values. The a posteriori covariance matrix is further exploited to evaluate, in turn, the posterior probability density functions of the radiant fluxes simulated by the two‐stream model, including those that are not measured, for example, the fraction of radiation absorbed in the ground. Applications are conducted using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) broadband surface albedo products. It turns out that the differences between these two albedo sets may translate into discernible signatures on some retrieved model parameters. Meanwhile, adding the Joint Research Centre (JRC)‐Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) Sea‐viewing Wide Field‐of‐view Sensor (SeaWiFS) products into the measurements yields a significant reduction of uncertainties. Results from these applications indicate that the products retrieved from the two‐stream inversion procedure (1) exhibit much less variability than those generated by the operational algorithms for the LAI and FAPAR, and (2) are in good agreement with the available ground‐based estimates.