A comparison of surface sensible and latent heat fluxes from aircraft and surface measurements in FIFE 1987

Journal Article · Mon Nov 30 04:00:00 EST 1992 · Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/92JD01048· OSTI ID:6226898

Kelly, R D ^[1]; Smith, E A ^[2]; MacPherson, J I ^[3]

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1. Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie (United States)
2. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee (United States)
3. National Research Council, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)

This work is part of the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment (FIFE), an international land-surface-atmosphere experiment aimed at improving the way climate models represent energy, water, heat, and carbon exchanges, and improving the utilization of satellite based remote sensing to monitor such parameters. Here the authors report on comparisons of sensible and latent heat flux data collected from ground based surface measurements and aircraft based boundary layer (BL) measurements. Measurements were made in all four of the FIFE campaigns which were spaced over the growing season to allow coverage of the complete vegetative cycle. There were 22 surface measurement sites using either eddy correlation or the Bowen ratio method. Aircraft measurements used eddy correlation, and used linear regression to estimate surface fluxes from BL data, based on the fact that BL data were sampled during convectively active times. BL profiles in general were linear. High pass filtering does not seem to have increased the disagreement between surface and BL measurements. The authors feel that the 15km flight path is too short to ever allow even 10% agreement of surface and BL measurements.

• OSTI ID: 6226898
• Journal Information: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States) Vol. 97:D17; ISSN JGREA2; ISSN 0148-0227
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540110*
BOUNDARY LAYERS
CLIMATE MODELS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
EARTH PLANET
ENERGY BUDGETS
ENTHALPY
HEAT FLUX
LAYERS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PLANETS
REMOTE SENSING
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
TRANSITION HEAT
VAPORIZATION HEAT