Abstract
Ground soil heat flux, G 0, is a difficult-to-measure but important component of the surface energy budget. Over the past years, many methods were proposed to estimate G 0; however, the application of these methods was seldom validated and assessed under different weather conditions. In this study, three popular models (force-restore, conduction-convection, and harmonic) and one widely used method (plate calorimetric), which had well performance in publications, were investigated using field data to estimate daily G 0 on clear, cloudy, and rainy days, while the gradient calorimetric method was regarded as the reference for assessing the accuracy. The results showed that harmonic model was well reproducing the G 0 curve for clear days, but it yielded large errors on cloudy and rainy days. The force-restore model worked well only under rainfall condition, but it was poor to estimate G 0 under rain-free conditions. On the contrary, the conduction-convection model was acceptable to determine G 0 under rain-free conditions, but it generated large errors on rainfall days. More importantly, the plate calorimetric method was the best to estimate G 0 under different weather conditions compared with the three models, but the performance of this method is affected by the placement depth of the heat flux plate. As a result, the heat flux plate was recommended to be buried as close as possible to the surface under clear condition. But under cloudy and rainy conditions, the plate placed at depth of around 0.075 m yielded G 0 well. Overall, the findings of this paper provide guidelines to acquire more accurate estimation of G 0 under different weather conditions, which could improve the surface energy balance in field.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu-Hamdeh NH, Reeder RC (2000) Soil thermal conductivity effects of density, moisture, salt concentration, and organic matter. Soil Sci Soc Am J 64(4):1285–1290
An K, Wang W, Zhao Y, Huang W, Chen L, Zhang Z, Wang Q, Li W (2016) Estimation from soil temperature of soil thermal diffusivity and heat flux in sub-surface layers. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 158(3):473–488
Bhumralkar CM (1975) Numerical experiments on the computation of ground surface temperature in an atmospheric circulation model. J Appl Meteorol 14:1246–1258
Bittelli M, Ventura F, Campbell GS, Snyder RL, Gallegati F, Pisa PR (2008) Coupling of heat, water vapor, and liquid water fluxes to compute evaporation in bare soils. J Hydrol 362(3–4):191–205
Carslaw HS, Jaeger JC (1959) Heat in solids (Vol. 19591). Clarendon Press, Oxford
Cellier P, Richard G, Robin P (1996) Partition of sensible heat fluxes into bare soil and the atmosphere. Agric For Meteorol 82(1):245–265
Choudhury B, Idso S, Reginato R (1987) Analysis of an empirical model for soil heat flux under a growing wheat crop for estimating evaporation by an infrared-temperature based energy balance equation. Agric For Meteorol 39(4):283–297
de Silans AP, Monteny BA, Lhomme JP (1997) The correction of soil heat flux measurements to derive an accurate surface energy balance by the Bowen ratio method. J Hydrol 188:453–465
Evett SR, Agam N, Kustas WP, Colaizzi PD, Schwartz RC (2012) Soil profile method for soil thermal diffusivity, conductivity and heat flux: comparison to soil heat flux plates. Adv Water Resour 50(0):41–54
Fuchs M (1986) Heat flux. Methods of Soil Analysis: Part 1—Physical and Mineralogical Methods: 957–968
Fuchs M, Tanner C (1968) Calibration and field test of soil heat flux plates. Soil Sci Soc Am J 32(3):326–328
Gao Z (2005) Determination of soil heat flux in a tibetan short-grass prairie. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 114(1):165–178
Heitman JL, Xiao X, Horton R, Sauer TJ (2008) Sensible heat measurements indicating depth and magnitude of subsurface soil water evaporation. Water Resour Res 44(4):67–76
Heitman JL, Horton R, Sauer TJ, Ren TS, Xiao X (2010) Latent heat in soil heat flux measurements. Agric For Meteorol 150(7):1147–1153
Heusinkveld B, Jacobs A, Holtslag A, Berkowicz S (2004) Surface energy balance closure in an arid region: role of soil heat flux. Agric For Meteorol 122(1):21–37
Horton R, Wierenga PJ (1983) Evaluation of methods for determining the apparent thermal diffusivity of soil near the surface. Soil Sci Soc Am J 47(1):25–32
Kampf SK, Tyler SW, Ortiz CA, Munoz JF, Adkins PL (2005) Evaporation and land surface energy budget at the Salar de Atacama, northern Chile. J Hydrol 310(1):236–252
Kustas WP, Daughtry CS (1990) Estimation of the soil heat flux/net radiation ratio from spectral data. Agric For Meteorol 49(3):205–223
Liebethal C, Foken T (2007) Evaluation of six parameterization approaches for the ground heat flux. Theor Appl Climatol 88(1–2):43–56
Liebethal C, Huwe B, Foken T (2005) Sensitivity analysis for two ground heat flux calculation approaches. Agric For Meteorol 132(3):253–262
Lin J (1980) On the force-restore method for prediction of ground surface temperature. J Geophys Res Oceans (1978–2012) 85(C6):3251–3254
Lu S, Ren T, Gong Y, Horton R (2007) An improved model for predicting soil thermal conductivity from water content at room temperature. Soil Sci Soc Am J 71(1):8–14
Massman W (1993) Errors associated with the combination method for estimating soil heat flux. Soil Sci Soc Am J 57(5):1198–1202
Miao YC, Liu SH, Lv SH, Zhang Y (2012) Study of computing methods of soil thermal diffusivity, temperature and heat flux. J Geophys Chinese 55(2):441–451
Ochsner TE, Sauer TJ, Horton R (2006) Field tests of the soil heat flux plate method and some alternatives. Agron J 98(4):1005–1014
Ochsner TE, Sauer TJ, Horton R (2007) Soil heat storage measurements in energy balance studies. Agron J 99(1):311–319
Peng X, Heitman J, Horton R, Ren T (2015) Field evaluation and improvement of the plate method for measuring soil heat flux density. Agric For Meteorol 214:341–349
Philip JR (1961) The theory of heat flux meters. J Geophys Res 66(2):571–579
Roxy M, Sumithranand V, Renuka G (2014) Soil heat flux and day time surface energy balance closure at astronomical observatory, Thiruvananthapuram, South Kerala. J Earth Syst Sci 123(4):741–750
Saito H, Šimůnek J, Mohanty BP (2006) Numerical analysis of coupled water, vapor, and heat transport in the vadose zone. Vadose Zone J 5(2):784–800
Santanello JA Jr, Friedl MA (2003) Diurnal covariation in soil heat flux and net radiation. J Appl Meteorol 42(6):851–862
Sauer TJ, Horton R (2005) Soil heat flux, in micrometeorology in agricultural systems, Agron Monogr 47: 131–154 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdaarsfacpub/1402/
Sauer TJ, Meek DW, Ochsner TE, Harris AR, Horton R (2003) Errors in heat flux measurement by flux plates of contrasting design and thermal conductivity. Vadose Zone J 2(4):580–588
Tyagi B, Satyanarayana A (2010) Modeling of soil surface temperature and heat flux during pre-monsoon season at two tropical stations. J Atmos Solar-Terrestrial Phys 72(2):224–233
Venegas P, Grandón A, Jara J, Paredes J (2013) Hourly estimation of soil heat flux density at the soil surface with three models and two field methods. Theor Appl Climatol 112(1–2):45–59
Verhoef A, van den Hurk BJ, Jacobs AF, Heusinkveld BG (1996) Thermal soil properties for vineyard (EFEDA-I) and savanna (HAPEX-Sahel) sites. Agric For Meteorol 78(1):1–18
Wang ZH, Bou-Zeid E (2012) A novel approach for the estimation of soil ground heat flux. Agric For Meteorol 154:214–221
Wang J, Bras R (1999) Ground heat flux estimated from surface soil temperature. J Hydrol 216(3):214–226
Wang WK, Li JT, Feng XZ, Chen XH, Yao KJ (2011a) Evolution of stream-aquifer hydrologic connectedness during pumping–experiment. J Hydrol 402(3):401–414
Wang WK, Zhao GZ, Li JT, Hou LL, Li YL, Yang F (2011b) Experimental and numerical study of coupled flow and heat transport. Proc. ICE Water Manag 164:533–547
Wang WK, Dai ZX, Li JT, Zhou LL (2012) A hybrid Laplace transform finite analytic method for solving transport problems with large Peclet and courant numbers. Comput Geosci 49:182–189
Yamanaka T, Takeda A, Sugita F (1997) A modified surface-resistance approach for representing bare-soil evaporation: wind tunnel trials under various atmospheric conditions. Water Resour Res 33(9):2117–2128
Yao Y, Liang S, Cheng J, Liu S, Fisher JB, Zhang X, Jia K, Zhao X, Qin Q, Zhao B (2013) MODIS-driven estimation of terrestrial latent heat flux in China based on a modified Priestley–Taylor algorithm. Agric For Meteorol 171:187–202
Zhang ZY, Wang WK, Chen L, Zhao YQ, An KD, Zhang L, Liu HZ (2015) Finite analytic method for solving the unsaturated flow equation. Vadose Zone J 14(1)
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41230314) and Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (no. 20100205110007). The analysis was also partially supported by the program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team of the Chinese Ministry of Education (IRT0811).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
An, K., Wang, W., Wang, Z. et al. Estimation of ground heat flux from soil temperature over a bare soil. Theor Appl Climatol 129, 913–922 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1816-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1816-8