Hyperresolution global land surface modeling: Meeting a grand challenge for monitoring Earth's terrestrial water

We discuss six major challenges in developing a system: improved representation of surface-subsurface interactions due to fine-scale topography and vegetation; improved representation of land-atmospheric interactions and resulting spatial information on soil moisture and evapotranspiration; inclusion of water quality as part of the biogeochemical cycle; representation of human impacts from water management; utilizing massively parallel computer systems and recent computational advances in solving hyperresolution models that will have up to 10(9) unknowns; and developing the required in situ and remote sensing global data sets.

We deem the development of a global hyperresolution model for monitoring the terrestrial water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles a "grand challenge to the community, and we call upon the international hydrologic community and the hydrological science support infrastructure to endorse the effort.