Parameter Estimation in Land Surface Models: Challenges and Opportunities With Data Assimilation and Machine Learning

Nina Raoult, Natalie Douglas, Natasha MacBean, Jana Kolassa, Tristan L. Quaife, Andrew G. Roberts, Rosie A. Fisher, Istem Fer, Cédric Bacour, Katherine Dagon, Linnia Hawkins, Nuno Carvalhais et al.

Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems · 28 October 2025 · Columbia University (LEAP, Lamont-Doherty), ECMWF, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, NASA, NSF NCAR / UCAR, University of Reading

Paper

In one sentence. Reviews data assimilation for land surface model parameter estimation and outlines how machine learning could reduce carbon-cycle and water uncertainty.

Abstract

Abstract Accurately predicting terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate change over long‐timescales is crucial for addressing global challenges. This relies on mechanistic modeling of ecosystem processes through land surface models (LSMs). Despite their importance, LSMs face significant uncertainties due to poorly constrained parameters, especially in carbon cycle predictions. This paper reviews the progress made in using data assimilation (DA) for LSM parameter optimization, focusing on carbon‐water‐vegetation interactions, as well as discussing the technical challenges faced by the community. These challenges include identifying sensitive model parameters and their prior distributions, characterizing errors due to observation biases and model‐data inconsistencies, developing observation operators to interface between the model and the observations, tackling spatial and temporal heterogeneity as well as dealing with large and multiple data sets, and including the spin‐up and historical period in the assimilation window. We outline how machine learning (ML) can help address these issues, proposing different avenues for future work that integrate ML and DA to reduce uncertainties in LSMs. We conclude by highlighting future priorities, including the need for international collaborations, to fully leverage the wealth of available Earth observation data sets, harness ML advances, and enhance the predictive capabilities of LSMs.

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