LAND-ATMOSPHERE INTERACTION

The basic elements of land‐atmosphere interaction (LA‐I) are the exchanges of moisture and energy between these two systems. Historically, many of the important aspects of this interaction have been treated in the areas related to micrometeorology, agriculture and forest meteorology, planetary boundary layer, and hydrology. More recently, LA‐I has also become recognized as important for studies of biogeochemical cycling, climate, mesoscale meteorology, and numerical weather prediction. Initial recognition of the importance of LA‐I in these latter areas extends back at least two decades, but major advances have occurred over the period covered by this review. Land has been recognized as, in principle, a major element of the climate system since the initiation of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and land was included in simple form in even the earliest General Circulation Model (GCM) climate studies. Copyright 1995 by the American Geophysical Union.