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Seeing the Fields and Forests: Application of Surface-Layer Theory and Flux-Tower Data to Calculating Vegetation Canopy Height

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Abstract

Canopy height is an important and dynamic site variable that affects the mass and energy exchanges between vegetation and the atmosphere. We develop a method to estimate canopy height routinely, using surface-layer theory and turbulence measurements made from a collection of flux towers. This tool is based on connecting the logarithmic wind profile generally expected in a neutral surface layer with direct measurements of friction velocity and assumptions about canopy height’s relationships with zero-plane displacement and aerodynamic roughness length. Tests over a broad range of canopy types and heights find that calculated values are in good agreement with direct measurements of canopy height, including in a heterogeneous landscape. Based on the various uncertainties associated with our starting assumptions about canopy micrometeorology, we present a blueprint for future work that is necessary for expanding and improving these initial calculations.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the following AmeriFlux sites for their data records: US-Ton, US-Var,US-Tw3,US-Twt, US-Wrc and US-Lin. In addition, funding for AmeriFlux data resources was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Funding for AmeriFlux core site data, US-Ton, US-Var,US-Tw3,US-Twt,was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the USDA-AFRI project and the California Department of Water Resources. We acknowledge the FLUXNET project and OZFLUX for providing data from the Australian site, AU-Tum. In addition, we thank Silvano Fares and Allen Goldstein for providing their citrus grove data and for insightful discussions about the analysis. We appreciate the helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers and Berkeley Biometeorology Lab members Cove Sturtevant and Sara Knox that greatly improved the manuscript. Thank you to Joe Verfaillie for maintaining the rice, alfalfa and tonzi site equipment and data.

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  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Sam Pennypacker

  2. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Dennis Baldocchi

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  1. Sam Pennypacker
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Correspondence to Sam Pennypacker.

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Pennypacker, S., Baldocchi, D. Seeing the Fields and Forests: Application of Surface-Layer Theory and Flux-Tower Data to Calculating Vegetation Canopy Height. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 158, 165–182 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-015-0090-0

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