Abstract: Reanalysis plays a critical role in GMAOs goal to enhance NASA’s program of Earth observations, providing vital data sets for climate research and the development of future missions. As the breadth of NASAs observations expands to include multiple components of the Earth system, so does the need to assimilate observations from currently uncoupled components of the system in a more physically consistent manner. GMAOs most recent reanalysis of the satellite era, MERRA-2, has completed the perio…