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The effect of relative humidity on eddy covariance latent heat flux measurements and its implication for partitioning into transpiration and evaporation

Journal Article · · Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [15];  [16];  [17];  [18] more »;  [19];  [20];  [21];  [22];  [23];  [24];  [25];  [10];  [26];  [27];  [28];  [29];  [30];  [31];  [32];  [33];  [2] « less
  1. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany); Ghent University (Belgium)
  2. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany)
  3. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany); European Commission, Ispra (Italy). Joint Research Centre
  4. Centro de Investigación Ecológica y Aplicaciones Forestales, Cerdanyola del Vallès (Spain); Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès (Spain)
  5. Ghent University (Belgium)
  6. Environmental Protection Agency of Aosta Valley, Aosta (Italy)
  7. Fundación Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo, Valencia (Spain)
  8. European Commission, Ispra (Italy). Joint Research Centre
  9. Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby (Denmark)
  10. University of Helsinki (Finland)
  11. University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy); euroMediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Viterbo (Italy)
  12. James Cook University, Cairns (Australia)
  13. University Innsbruck (Austria)
  14. Gottingen University (Germany)
  15. Technische Universität Dresden (Germany)
  16. University of Zurich (Switzerland)
  17. Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Julich (Germany)
  18. Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zurich (Switzerland)
  19. Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Braunschweig (Germany)
  20. McMaster University, Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  21. National Research Council of Italy, Rome (Italy)
  22. Hokkaido University, Sapporo (Japan)
  23. Lund University (Sweden)
  24. San Diego State University, CA (United States); Univ. of Exeter (United Kingdom)
  25. Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR (United States)
  26. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  27. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) (Germany)
  28. University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE (United States)
  29. Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy)
  30. University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD (Australia); Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Kensington (Australia)
  31. Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing (China)
  32. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany); University Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)
  33. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany); Michael-Stifel-Center Jena for Data-Driven and Simulation Science, Jen (Germany)

While the eddy covariance (EC) technique is a well-established method for measuring water fluxes (i.e., evaporation or 'evapotranspiration’, ET), the measurement is susceptible to many uncertainties. One such issue is the potential underestimation of ET when relative humidity (RH) is high (> 70%), due to low-pass filtering with some EC systems. Yet, this underestimation for different types of EC systems (e.g. open-path or closed-path sensors) has not been characterized for synthesis datasets such as the widely used FLUXNET2015 dataset. Here, we assess the RH-associated underestimation of latent heat fluxes (LE, or ET) from different EC systems for 163 sites in the FLUXNET2015 dataset. We found that the LE underestimation is most apparent during hours when RH is higher than 70%, predominantly observed at sites using closed-path EC systems, but the extent of the LE underestimation is highly site-specific. We then propose a machine learning based method to correct for this underestimation, and compare it to two energy balance closure based LE correction approaches (Bowen ratio correction, BRC, and attributing all errors to LE). Our correction increases LE by 189% for closed-path sites at high RH (> 90%), while BRC increases LE by around 30% for all RH conditions. Additionally, we assess the influence of these corrections on ET-based transpiration (T) estimates using two different ET partitioning methods. Results show opposite responses (increasing vs. slightly decreasing T-to-ET ratios, T/ET) between the two methods when comparing T based on corrected and uncorrected LE. Overall, our results demonstrate the existence of a high RH bias in water fluxes in the FLUXNET2015 dataset and suggest that this bias is a pronounced source of uncertainty in ET measurements to be considered when estimating ecosystem T/ET and WUE.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Spanish State Research Agency; Australian Research Council; ENVRI-FAIR H2020
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1972195
Journal Information:
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Journal Name: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Vol. 330; ISSN 0168-1923
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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