The measurement of turbulent surface-layer fluxes by use of bichromatic scintillation

Scintillation measurements with a HeNe and a CO₂ laser were used to derive turbulent fluxes of heat and momentum in the surface layer. This was achieved by the structure constant or dissipation technique, i.e., by relating the measured structure constants and inner scales of refractive index fluctuations to structure constants of temperature fluctuations and dissipation rates of turbulent kinetic energy, respectively, and then assuming Monin-Obukhov similarity.The resulting heat fluxes agree well with measurements using the eddy correlation technique but for averaging periods of 10 min, the optical data show a much smoother and physically more plausible behaviour. The optically derived friction velocities are in good agreement with estimates derived from wind velocity and surface roughness. It was also observed that for stationary conditions, 1-min averaged optical measurements already provide good estimates for longer averaged heat and momentum fluxes.Even though some uncertainty remains about the empirical constants and Monin-Obukhov similarity expressions used, the method clearly proves to be of great value for monitoring surface-layer turbulence.     

Determination of turbulent momentum and heat fluxes by spectral methods

Methods are studied which permit one to evaluate turbulent fluxes from the results of spectral measurements in turbulent laboratory flows and an unstable atmospheric surface layer. The well known dissipation method of flux measurements, which uses spectral data related to the inertial range, is reanalyzed. New theoretical ideas and the latest experimental data are used to specify this method in cases of moderately and very strongly unstable thermal stratifications.Moreover, it is also explained how to estimate momentum and heat fluxes from data in the low frequency parts of the velocity and temperature spectra in the low frequency ranges beyond the lower limit of the inertial range. This permits one to estimate fluxes using rather simple and cheap instruments (e.g., Pilot-tubes and thermocouples in laboratory flows or cup anemometers and crude resistance thermometers in meteorological studies). The equations for flux determination are based in such cases on the recent models by Kader (1987, 1988) and Kader and Yaglom (1990, 1991) of spectral shapes at mesoscale wave numbers; these models agree quite satisfactorily with many (though not all) data of direct spectral measurements. It is shown that estimated momentum and heat fluxes in the laboratory and in an unstably stratified atmospheric surface layer obtained by the method suggested in this paper agree satisfactorily with direct flux measurements.     

Estimating heat fluxes by merging profile formulae and the energy budget with a variational technique

A variational technique (VT) is applied to estimate surface sensible and latent heat fluxes based on observations of air temperature, wind speed, and humidity, respectively, at three heights (1 m, 4 m, and 10 m), and the surface energy and radiation budgets by the surface energy and radiation system (SERBS). The method fully uses all information provided by the measurements of air temperature, wind, and humidity profiles, the surface energy budget, and the similarity profile formulae as well. Data collected at Feixi experiment station installed by the China Heavy Rain Experiment and Study (HeRES) Program are used to test the method. Results show that the proposed technique can overcome the well-known unstablility problem that occurs when the Bowen method becomes singular; in comparison with the profile method, it reduces both the sensitivities of latent heat fluxes to observational errors in humidity and those of sensible heat fluxes to observational errors in temperature, while the estimated heat fluxes approximately satisfy the surface energy budget. Therefore, the variational technique is more reliable and stable than the two conventional methods in estimating surface sensible and latent heat fluxes.     

LES Study of the Energy Imbalance Problem with Eddy Covariance Fluxes

The spatial representativeness of heat fluxes on the basis of single-tower measurements, and the mechanism of the so-called energy imbalance problem, are investigated through numerical experiments using large-eddy simulation (LES). LES experiments are done for the daytime atmospheric boundary layer heated over a flat surface, as a best-case scenario completely free of sensor errors and the uncertainties of field conditions. Imbalance is defined as the deviation of the `turbulent' heat flux at a grid point from the horizontally averaged `total' heat flux. Both the theoretical and numerical results of the present study suggest the limitation of single-tower measurements and the necessity of horizontally-distributed observation networks.The temporally averaged `turbulent' flux based on a point measurement systematically underestimates the `total' flux (negative imbalance). This is attributed to local advection effects caused by the existence of turbulent organized structures (TOS), whose time scale is much longer than that of thermal plumes. The temporal and spatial change of TOS patterns causes low-frequency trends in the velocity and temperature data resulting in large scatter of the flux estimates. The influences of geostrophic wind speed, averaging time, observation height, computational domain size and resolution on tower-measured fluxes are also discussed. Finally, it is suggested that a weak inhomogenity in surface heating may reduce the negative bias of flux estimates.     

Measurements of chemically and biologically effective radiation reaching the ground

Solar ultraviolet radiation at the surface has been measured at Potsdam on cloudless days by spectrometer OL 752/10. The measurements are compared with broad-band filter measurements and with model calculations using a modified version of Green's model, which is independent of the measurements. Input data to the model such as atmospheric ozone and aerosol optical thicknesses were measured by a Dobson and Brewer spectrophotometer as well as a Linke Feussner pyrheliometer, respectively. Differences between the model and the measurements are discussed in terms of uncertainties in the calibration and errors of instruments as well as uncertainties in the model calculations including the errors of input data. It is demonstrated that different chemically and biologically effective radiances can be determined from only one set of measured spectral irradiance components, i.e. global radiation and diffuse downward and upward directed radiation. Examples of diurnal variations of the photochemical production of ozone and hydroxyl radicals as determined from spectral irradiance measurements and measured concentrations of relevant trace gases are given.It is shown from the measured irradiance that relations between different effects of radiation to the biosphere depend on solar zenith angle, and to a certain extent also on atmospheric ozone. This has to be taken into account when adverse effects of changing UV radiation are evaluated. Radiation Amplification Factors derived from measurements correspond to those determined from model calculations.     

Derivation of water vapor fluxes from Lidar measurements

Two techniques are described by which the flux of water vapor can be derived from concentration measurements made by a Raman-Lidar. Monin-Obukhov similarity theory and dissipation techniques are used as the basis for these methods. The resulting fluxes are compared to fluxes from standard point instruments. The techniques described are appropriate for measuring the flux of any scalar quantity using Lidar measurements in the inner region of the boundary layer.     

Diurnal variability of the Earth Radiation Budget: Sampling requirements,time integration aspects and error estimates for the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE)

Summary The diurnal variation of the Earth Radiation Budget and its components require for sparsely temporal sampling a high amount of modeling for the derivation of precise daily averages. In the present study the time integration errors of the regional monthly averages of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (Barkstrom, 1984) are estimated for April 1985. For this error assessment we made use of data of the European geostationary satellite Meteosat 2 which narrowbanded measurements have been converted to reasonable estimates of broad-band radiation fluxes. Based on this data set the measurements of the ERBE satellites, ERBS, NOAA 9, and NOAA 10 are simulated. For the time integration the ERBE time integration models are used.The mean error for the regional monthly average of the net radiation flux varies between — 3 and + 5 W/m² for the combination of all three satellites. The largest contribution to this uncertainty is given by the time integration of the shortwave fluxes. A new approach for the time integration procedure is presented which is based on the Maximum Entropy spectral analysis of temporal high resolution data sets as provided by geostationary satellites.This study closes with the estimation of the final error for ERBE regional monthly averages of the net radiation flux, which includes the uncertainties of the instruments, the inversion process and the time integration process. These errors lie between 11.1 W/m² for single NOAA 9 products and 7.8 W/m² for the combination of all three satellites. With that the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment fulfills the required accuracy.With 12 Figures     

Lidar remote sounding of cirrus clouds and comparison of simulated fluxes with surface and METEOSAT observations

Three cirrus cloud cases have been remotely sounded near Paris by a ground-based backscatter lidar and broadband radiometers. Some cirrus properties (optical depth, emissivity, height) are derived from these measurements and used to compare radiative transfer calculations to surface and METEOSAT observations of broadband irradiances.For a useful comparison, the three cirrus cases were selected to have different morphologies and optical properties: June 29, 1993—thin cirrus cloud (thickness 1.5 km, optical depth 0.22); September 6, 1993—thick cirrus cloud (thickness 5 km, optical depth 2.7); and November 16, 1993—inhomogeneous and geometrically thick cirrus cloud (thickness 3.5–6.5 km) but optically thin (optical depth 0.82).At surface, the differences between measurements and model range from 1.5 to 4 Wm⁻² for longwave fluxes, and from 20 to 70 Wm⁻² for shortwave fluxes.At the top of the atmosphere, the differences between METEOSAT measurements and model are in fair agreement for longwave fluxes (up to 50 Wm⁻²). However, unexpected high differences are found for shortwave fluxes (up to 144 Wm⁻²) due to cirrus clouds heterogeneities and uncertainties in their microphysical properties and especially the occurrence of high reflectivity due to horizontally oriented ice crystals at the cloud top, which are not taken into account by the Model presently.     

Atmosphere–Surface Fluxes of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> using Spectral Techniques

Different flux estimation techniques are compared here in order to evaluate air–sea exchange measurement methods used on moving platforms. Techniques using power spectra and cospectra to estimate fluxes are presented and applied to measurements of wind speed and sensible heat, latent heat and CO₂ fluxes. Momentum and scalar fluxes are calculated from the dissipation technique utilizing the inertial subrange of the power spectra and from estimation of the cospectral amplitude, and both flux estimates are compared to covariance derived fluxes. It is shown how even data having a poor signal-to-noise ratio can be used for flux estimations.     

Estimation of turbulent sensible heat and momentum fluxes over a heterogeneous urban area using a large aperture scintillometer

The accurate determination of surface-layer turbulent fluxes over urban areas is critical to understanding urban boundary layer (UBL) evolution. In this study, a remote-sensing technique using a large aperture scintillometer (LAS) was investigated to estimate surface-layer turbulent fluxes over a highly heterogeneous urban area. The LAS system, with an optical path length of 2.1 km, was deployed in an urban area characterized by a complicated land-use mix (residential houses, water body, bare ground, etc.). The turbulent sensible heat (Q H) and momentum fluxes (τ) were estimated from the scintillation measurements obtained from the LAS system during the cold season. Three-dimensional LAS footprint modeling was introduced to identify the source areas ("footprint") of the estimated turbulent fluxes. The analysis results showed that the LAS-derived turbulent fluxes for the highly heterogeneous urban area revealed reasonable temporal variation during daytime on clear days, in comparison to the land-surface process-resolving numerical modeling. A series of sensitivity tests indicated that the overall uncertainty in the LAS-derived daytime Q H was within 20%-30% in terms of the influence of input parameters and the non-dimensional similarity function for the temperature structure function parameter, while the estimation errors in τ were less sensitive to the factors of influence, except aerodynamic roughness length. The 3D LAS footprint modeling characterized the source areas of the LAS-derived turbulent fluxes in the heterogeneous urban area, revealing that the representative spatial scales of the LAS system deployed with the 2.1 km optical path distance ranged from 0.2 to 2 km2 (a "micro-α scale"), depending on local meteorological conditions.     

Observations Of The Turbulence Structure Within Two Stratocumulus-Topped, Marine Boundary Layers

Two situations observed during the second Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-2) are analysed from aircraft measurements in the broken stratocumulus (Sc)-topped marine boundary layer. The first one (26 June 1997), characterized by a non-polluted, oceanic air mass, presents a decoupling between the Sc layer (1400–1520 m) and the turbulent mixed layer, this latter extending from the surface up to 580 m. In contrast, the second case (9 July 1997), during which continental air had been advected over the experimental area, presents a well-coupled layer extending from the surface up to the top of the Sc layer(910 m). This coupling, uncommon in this area in the middle of the day, isrelated to the relative shallowness of the boundary layer. For both situations,it is shown that the turbulent fluxes can be computed with reasonably goodaccuracy (better than 10 %), taking into account both the random and thesystematic errors involved in the eddy-correlation technique. Estimationof random error is based on the computation of the integral scale of thecovariance, and systematic error is estimated from the parameterizationof Mann and Lenschow. The fluxes show that the buoyancy, as a sourceof turbulence, is due to latent heat flux rather than sensible heat flux,with values comparable to previous experiments in the Azores-Canariesbasin. In addition, we propose a method to analyse, for coupled situations,the relationship between the fractional cloudiness and the organization ofthe turbulent field below the clouds. This method is based on a conditionalsampling technique. It is shown that this organization cannot be deducedfrom the analysis of the velocity signal, which is dominated by turbulence.However, when the signals are conditionally sampled according to thepresence or absence of clouds, a weak cloud-related organization can beshown, and the cloud-related transports quantified; the values found areof the order of 10 % of the total transfers, i.e. the same order of magnitude asthe errors on the total flux computation. The method developed is thereforepromising, provided that the uncertainties can be reduced by analyzing a highamount of data.     

Aircraft Observations of Sea-Surface Turbulent Fluxes Near the California Coast

Aircraft turbulence data from the Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network project were analyzed and compared to the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) bulk parametrization of turbulent fluxes in an ocean area near the coast of California characterized by complex atmospheric flow. Turbulent fluxes measured at about 35 m above the sea surface using the eddy-correlation method were lower than bulk estimates under unstable and stable atmospheric stratification for all but light winds. Neutral turbulent transfer coefficients were used in this comparison because they remove the effects of mean atmospheric conditions and atmospheric stability. Spectral analysis suggested that kilometre-scale longitudinal rolls affect significantly turbulence measurements even near the sea surface, depending on sampling direction. Cross-wind sampling tended to capture all the available turbulent energy. Vertical soundings showed low boundary-layer depths and high flux divergence near the sea surface in the case of sensible heat flux but minimal flux divergence for the momentum flux. Cross-wind sampling and flux divergence were found to explain most of the observed discrepancies between the measured and bulk flux estimates. At low wind speeds the drag coefficient determined with eddy correlation and an inertial dissipation method after corrections were applied still showed high values compared to bulk estimates. This discrepancy correlated with the dominance of sea swell, which was a usually observed condition under low wind speeds. Under stable atmospheric conditions measured sensible heat fluxes, which usually have low values over the ocean, were possibly affected by measurement errors and deviated significantly from bulk estimates.     

Ship-board measurements and estimations of air-sea fluxes in the western tropical pacific during TOGA COARE

Direct air-sea flux measurements were made on R/V Kexue #1 at 4 ° S, 156 ° E during the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Coupled Ocean-Atmospheric Response Experiment (COARE) Intensive Observation Period (IOP). An array of six accelerometers was used to measure the motion of the anchored ship, and a sonic anemometer and Lyman-α hygrometer were used to measure the turbulent wind vector and specific humidity. The contamination of the turbulent wind components by ship motion was largely removed by an improvement of a procedure due to Shao based on the acceleration signals. The scheme of the wind correction for ship motion is briefly outlined. Results are presented from data for the best wind direction relative to the ship to minimize flow distortion effects. Both the time series and the power spectra of the sonic-measured wind components show swell-induced ship motion contamination, which is largely removed by the accelerometer correction scheme. There was less contamination in the longitudinal wind component than in the vertical and transverse components. The spectral characteristics of the surface-layer turbulence properties are compared with those from previous land and ocean results. Momentum and latent heat fluxes were calculated by eddy correlation and compared to those estimated by the inertial dissipation method and the TOGA COARE bulk formula. The estimations of wind stress determined by eddy correlation are smaller than those from the TOGA COARE bulk formula, especially for higher wind speeds, while those from the bulk formula and inertial dissipation technique are generally in agreement. The estimations of latent heat flux from the three different methods are in reasonable agreement. The effect of the correction for ship motion on latent heat fluxes is not as large as on momentum fluxes.     

Consequences of Incomplete Surface Energy Balance Closure for CO2 Fluxes from Open-Path CO2/H2O Infrared Gas Analysers

We present an approach for assessing the impact of systematic biases in measured energy fluxes on CO₂ flux estimates obtained from open-path eddy-covariance systems. In our analysis, we present equations to analyse the propagation of errors through the Webb, Pearman, and Leuning (WPL) algorithm [Quart. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc. 106, 85–100, 1980] that is widely used to account for density fluctuations on CO₂ flux measurements. Our results suggest that incomplete energy balance closure does not necessarily lead to an underestimation of CO₂ fluxes despite the existence of surface energy imbalance; either an overestimation or underestimation of CO₂ fluxes is possible depending on local atmospheric conditions and measurement errors in the sensible heat, latent heat, and CO₂ fluxes. We use open-path eddy-covariance fluxes measured over a black spruce forest in interior Alaska to explore several energy imbalance scenarios and their consequences for CO₂ fluxes.     

Inertial-dissipation methods and turbulent fluxes at the air-ocean interface

The use of high frequency atmospheric turbulence properties (inertial subrange spectra, structure function parameters or dissipation rates) to infer surface fluxes of momentum, sensible heat and latent heat is more practical for most ocean going platforms than direct covariance measurement. The relationships required to deduce the fluxes from such data are examined in detail in this paper and several ambiguities and uncertainties are identified. It is noted that, over water, data on water vapor properties (the dimensionless functions for the mean profile, the structure function parameter and the variance transport term) are extremely sparse and the influence of sea spray is largely unknown. Special attention is given to flux estimation on the basis of the structure function formalism. Existing knowledge about the relevant similarity functions is summarized and discussed in light of the ambiguities identified above.     

Comparison of the Ångström parameters retrieval in different spectral ranges with the use of different techniques

Summary Ground-based spectroradiometric measurements obtained in Athens have been used in order to derive the aerosol optical depth and the ?ngstr?m parameters. Their derivation is achieved using three well-established and widely used techniques; the Volz method, the direct method and the least-squares fit to the experimental aerosol optical depth values. This study aims at investigating the ability of the different methods to derive similar ?ngstr?m turbidity coefficients and their dependence on the spectral range used for their determination. In addition, the uncertainties revealed especially in the UV spectral band are highlighted. The various techniques lead to different ?ngstr?m turbidity coefficients especially if narrow spectral bands at the shorter wavelengths are used. It is also established that the ?ngstr?m turbidity coefficients derived by any of the three methods at short wavelengths are not representative of the whole spectrum, while their derivation exhibits large uncertainties especially under low turbidity conditions. Therefore, the comparison of α and β values obtained using the three above-mentioned techniques in several spectral bands is not an easy task, since these values differ significantly. From the whole analysis it is established that the least-squares method is the least imprecise, also exhibiting the least wavelength dependence. Correspondence: Dimitris G. Kaskaoutis, Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, Lofos Nymphon, P.O. Box 20048, 11810 Athens, Greece     

Assessing Tower Flux Footprint Climatology and Scaling Between Remotely Sensed and Eddy Covariance Measurements

We describe pragmatic and reliable methods to examine the influence of patch-scale heterogeneities on the uncertainty in long-term eddy-covariance (EC) carbon flux data and to scale between the carbon flux estimates derived from land surface optical remote sensing and directly derived from EC flux measurements on the basis of the assessment of footprint climatology. Three different aged Douglas-fir stands with EC flux towers located on Vancouver Island and part of the Fluxnet Canada Research Network were selected. Monthly, annual and interannual footprint climatologies, unweighted or weighted by carbon fluxes, were produced by a simple model based on an analytical solution of the Eulerian advection-diffusion equation. The dimensions and orientation of the flux footprint depended on the height of the measurement, surface roughness length, wind speed and direction, and atmospheric stability. The weighted footprint climatology varied with the different carbon flux components and was asymmetrically distributed around the tower, and its size and spatial structure significantly varied monthly, seasonally and inter-annually. Gross primary productivity (GPP) maps at 10-m resolution were produced using a tower-mounted multi-angular spectroradiometer, combined with the canopy structural information derived from airborne laser scanning (Lidar) data. The horizontal arrays of footprint climatology were superimposed on the 10-m-resolution GPP maps. Monthly and annual uncertainties in EC flux caused by variations in footprint climatology of the 59-year-old Douglas-fir stand were estimated to be approximately 15–20% based on a comparison of GPP estimates derived from EC and remote sensing measurements, and on sensor location bias analysis. The footprint-variation-induced uncertainty in long-term EC flux measurements was mainly dependent on the site spatial heterogeneity. The bias in carbon flux estimates using spatially-explicit ecological models or tower-based remote sensing at finer scales can be estimated by comparing the footprint-weighted and EC-derived flux estimates. This bias is useful for model parameter optimizing. The optimization of parameters in remote-sensing algorithms or ecosystem models using satellite data will, in turn, increase the accuracy in the upscaled regional carbon flux estimation.     

Improved Representation of Land-surface Heterogeneity in a Non-hydrostatic Numerical Weather Prediction Model

This study focuses on the relevance of accurate surface parameters, in particular soil moisture, and of parameterizations for heterogeneous land surfaces, for the prediction of sensible and latent heat fluxes by a mesoscale weather forecast model with horizontal grid resolution of 7 km. The analysis is based on model integrations for a 30-day period, which are compared both to flux measurements obtained from the LITFASS-2003 field experiment and to high-resolution-model (1-km grid spacing) results. At first, the relevance of improved parameter sets and input data compared to usual operational practice for an accurate prediction of near-surface fluxes is shown and discussed. It is demonstrated that an observation-based land-surface assimilation scheme leads to an improved soil moisture analysis, which is shown to be essential for the realistic simulation of surface fluxes. Secondly, the implementation of two efficient parameterization strategies for subgrid-scale variability of the surface, the mosaic and the tile approach, is presented. Using these methods, the simulations are in better agreement with measurements than simulations with simple aggregation methods that use effective surface parameters. Integrations with the mosaic approach reproduce high resolution simulations very well and more accurately than simulations with the tile method. Finally, the high resolution simulations are analyzed to justify and discuss the approximations underlying both methods.     

Experimental evaluation of analytical and Lagrangian surface-layer flux footprint models

Three surface-layer flux footprint models have been evaluated with the results of an SF₆ tracer release experiment specifically designed to test such models. They are a Lagrangian stochastic model, an analytical model, and a simplified derivative of the analytical model. Vertical SF₆ fluxes were measured by eddy correlation at four distances downwind of a near-surface crosswind line source in an area of homogeneous sagebrush. The mean fluxes were calculated for 136 half-hour test periods and compared to the fluxes predicted by the footprint models. All three models gave similar predictions and good characterizations of the footprint over the stability range -0.01 < z ₀/L < 0.005. The predictions of the three models were within the limits of the uncertainty of the experimental measurements in all but a few cases within this stability range. All three models are unconditionally recommended for determining the area defined by the footprint over short vegetative canopies in this range. They are also generally appropriate for estimating flux magnitudes within the limits of experimental uncertainties. Most of the mean differences observed between the measured and predicted fluxes at each of the four towers reflect a tendency for the measured fluxes to be greater than those predicted by the three models. Rigorous verification of the models in strongly stable conditions was complicated by the need to obtain very accurate measurements of small fluxes in only marginally stationary conditions. Verification in strongly unstable conditions was hampered by the limited number of appropriate data.