Satellite-derived surface characterization and surface fluxes across the Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed Site.
Atmospheric processes in the lower boundary layer are strongly modulated by energy and mass fluxes from and to the underlying surface. The atmosphere-surface interactions usually occur at small temporal (seconds to minutes) and spatial (centimeters to meters) scales, which causes difficulties with including surface processes in atmospheric models, which can only handle much larger scales (kilometers). Developing schemes to characterize spatial variabilities in surface fluxes over heterogeneous surfaces for a regionally representative surface flux that can be correctly used in atmospheric models becomes an important issue. The Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) has an outline area of 350 x 450 km, across which land surface type, topography, vegetation, and soil conditions vary widely (Gao 1994). Surface flux measurements at a limited number of surface stations, including surface latent and sensible heat fluxes, net radiation, and soil heat flux by energy balance Bowen ratio (EBBR) stations, heat and momentum fluxes by eddy correlation stations, and upwelling radiation flux by surface radiation stations, are influenced by local surface conditions surrounding the stations and thus may not be able to provide fluxes representative of the entire CART site. Use of these data to represent the entire CART site in modeling studies and in comparing with large-scale satellite observations could lead to significant uncertainties. This study uses high-resolution ({approx}1 km) remote sensing by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting environmental satellites to characterize spatial and temporal variations in land surface conditions and then to develop methods for estimating spatial variations and CART-representative values of surface fluxes.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 917605
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/ER/CP-95345; TRN: US200817%%641
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Science Team Meeting; Mar 3-7, 1996; San Antonio, TX
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- ENGLISH
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