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Influence of Leaf Area Index on the Radiometric Resistance to Heat Transfer

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Abstract

Sensible heat flux is an important component of the surface energy balance. Land surface models often use the radiative surface temperature instead of the aerodynamic temperature to predict the surface sensible flux, because the former is much easier to observe by remote sensing or to compute from the surface energy balance equation. Here, measurements from 44 FLUXNET sites are used to examine the stability and leaf area index (LAI) dependence of the radiometric resistance, a resistance that should be included in the bulk transfer method if the radiometric temperature is used for the flux calculation. Results show that the radiometric resistance is much higher under stable conditions than under unstable conditions. In unstable conditions, the radiometric resistance is highly sensitive to LAI, decreasing exponentially as LAI increases. Omission of the radiometric resistance from the bulk transfer method causes a large overestimation in the sensible heat flux, especially for low-LAI surfaces and under unstable conditions.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the Ministry of Education of China (grant PCSIRT). The first author also acknowledges support by a Yale University graduate fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yale-NUIST Center on Atmospheric Environment, Nanjing University of Information, Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Lei Zhao & Xuhui Lee

  2. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Lei Zhao & Xuhui Lee

  3. School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, 68583, USA

    Andrew E. Suyker

  4. Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xuefa Wen

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  1. Lei Zhao
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  2. Xuhui Lee
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Correspondence to Lei Zhao.

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Zhao, L., Lee, X., Suyker, A.E. et al. Influence of Leaf Area Index on the Radiometric Resistance to Heat Transfer. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 158, 105–123 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-015-0070-4

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