Global surface parameter database at 1 km resolution derived from land cover and climatic maps and used in meteorological models

Soil vegetation atmosphere transfer schemes (SVATS) require a few primary parameters as inputs (leaf area index, vegetation fraction, albedo ...). The objective of this paper is to describe the method used to derive these parameters from land cover maps, climate maps and NDVI datasets. The resolution of these new surface parameters is 1 km at a global scale; over Europe, a land cover map with a finer resolution (250 m) is available.