The use of 137Cs as a tracer in an erosion study in south limburg (the Netherlands) and the influence of chernobyl fallout

The ¹³⁷Cs radioactivity of soils was used as a tracer of soil erosion in a catchment in the Netherlands: 143 samples were analysed to map the ¹³⁷Cs redistribution using geostatistical interpolation methods. Caesium-137 activities on grassland are significantly higher than on arable land. Also, ¹³⁷Cs activities on waning slopes are higher and activities on steep slopes are lower. The soil erosion estimates, derived from the ¹³⁷Cs data, are used to validate the USLE erosion model. The recent Chernobyl nuclear accident also contributed to the ¹³⁷Cs activity. However, the Chernobyl input of ¹³⁷Cs, with a constant ratio of 1.765:1 to ¹³⁴Cs, cannot be used as a tracer of soil erosion. Because of the rapid decay of ¹³⁴Cs, we will not be possible to separate the sources of ¹³⁷Cs in the near future in areas significantly influenced by Chernobyl fallout and in these areas ¹³⁷Cs can no longer be used as a soil erosion tracer.     

Effect of Surface Heterogeneity on the Boundary-Layer Height: A Case Study at a Semi-Arid Forest

We investigate the effects of an isolated meso-\(\gamma \)-scale surface heterogeneity for roughness and albedo on the atmospheric boundary-layer (ABL) height, with a case study at a semi-arid forest surrounded by sparse shrubland (forest area: \(28~\text{ km }^2\), forest length in the main wind direction: 7 km). Doppler lidar and ceilometer measurements at this semi-arid forest show an increase in the ABL height over the forest compared with the shrubland on four out of eight days. The differences in the ABL height between shrubland and forest are explained for all days with a model that assumes a linear growth of the internal boundary layer of the forest through the convective ABL upwind of the forest followed by a square-root growth into the stable free atmosphere. For the environmental conditions that existed during our measurements, the increase in ABL height due to large sensible heat fluxes from the forest (\(600~\text {W~m}^{-2}\) in summer) is subdued by stable stratification in the free atmosphere above the ABL, or reduced by high wind speeds in the mixed layer.     

Evaluation of Probe-Induced Flow Distortion of Campbell CSAT3 Sonic Anemometers by Numerical Simulation

The Campbell CSAT3 sonic anemometer is one of the most popular instruments for turbulence measurements in basic micrometeorological research and ecological applications. While measurement uncertainty has been characterized by field experiments and wind-tunnel studies in the past, there are conflicting estimates, which motivated us to conduct a numerical experiment using large-eddy simulation to evaluate the probe-induced flow distortion of the CSAT3 anemometer under controlled conditions, and with exact knowledge of the undisturbed flow. As opposed to wind-tunnel studies, we imposed oscillations in both the vertical and horizontal velocity components at the distinct frequencies and amplitudes found in typical turbulence spectra in the surface layer. The resulting flow-distortion errors for the standard deviations of the vertical velocity component range from 3 to 7%, and from 1 to 3% for the horizontal velocity component, depending on the azimuth angle. The magnitude of these errors is almost independent of the frequency of wind speed fluctuations, provided the amplitude is typical for surface-layer turbulence. A comparison of the corrections for transducer shadowing proposed by both Kaimal et al. (Proc Dyn Flow Conf, 551–565, 1978) and Horst et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol 155:371–395, 2015) show that both methods compensate for a larger part of the observed error, but do not sufficiently account for the azimuth dependency. Further numerical simulations could be conducted in the future to characterize the flow distortion induced by other existing types of sonic anemometers for the purposes of optimizing their geometry.     

Flood Forecasting and Warning at the River Basin and at the European Scale

Application of recent advances in numerical weather prediction (NWP) has the potential of allowing delivery of flood warning to extend well beyond the typical lead times of operational flood warning at the river basin scale. A prototype system, a European Flood Forecasting System (EFFS) developed to deliver such pre-warnings, aiming at providing a pre-warning at lead times of between 5 and 10 days is described. Considerable uncertainty in the weather forecast at these lead times, however, means that resulting forecasts must be treated probabilistically, and although probabilistic forecasts may be easy to disseminate, these are difficult to understand. This paper explores the structure of operational flood warning, and shows that integration in the flood warning process is required if the pre-warning is to fulfil its potential. A simple method of summarising the information in the pre-warning is presented, and the system in hindcast mode is shown to give clear indication of an upcoming major event in the Rhine basin up to 10 days before the actual event. Finally recommendations on the use of data assimilation to embed the EFFS system within an operational environment are given.     

Comparison of Calibration Techniques for Ground-Based C-Band Radiometers

We quantify the performance of three commonly used techniques to calibrate ground-based microwave radiometers for soil moisture studies, external (EC), tipping-curve (TC), and internal (IC). We describe two ground-based C-band radiometer systems with similar design and the calibration experiments conducted in Florida and Alaska using these two systems. We compare the consistency of the calibration curves during the experiments among the three techniques and evaluate our calibration by comparing the measured brightness temperatures (T_Bs) to those estimated from a lake emission model (LEM). The mean absolute difference among the T_Bs calibrated using the three techniques over the observed range of output voltages during the experiments was 1.14 K. Even though IC produced the most consistent calibration curves, the differences among the three calibration techniques were not significant. The mean absolute errors (MAEs) between the observed and LEM T_B s were about 2-4 K. As expected, the utility of TC at C-band was significantly reduced due to transparency of the atmosphere at these frequencies. Because IC was found to have a MAE of about 2 K that is suitable for soil moisture applications and was consistent during our experiments under different environmental conditions, it could augment less frequent calibrations obtained using the EC or TC techniques     

Natural Hazards Monitoring:Forest Fires, Droughts And Floods - The Example Of European Pilot Projects

This paper reviews the subject of naturalhazards and the use of existing remote sensing systemsin the different phases of disaster management forsome specific natural hazards: forest fires, droughtsand floods. It centers on the applicability of remotesensing for increasing preparedness, providing earlywarnings, monitoring the hazards in real time, andassessing the damage so that relief can be provided. Comparison of the information provided by existingsystems and that needed for operational use of remotesensing in disaster management is also addressed. Thecapability of some of the future sensors to complywith the needs in the field of natural hazards isdiscussed. In this context current pilot projectscarried on at the European Commission Joint ResearchCentre are presented.     

Effect of Secondary Circulations on the Surface–Atmosphere Exchange of Energy at an Isolated Semi-arid Forest

Afforestation in semi-arid regions can potentially enhance the global carbon sink by increasing the terrestrial biomass. However, the survival of planted forests under such extreme environmental conditions is not guaranteed a priori, and critically depends on the surface–atmosphere exchange of energy. We investigate the pine forest Yatir in Israel, an example of a man-made semi-arid ecosystem, by means of large-eddy simulations. We focus on the interaction between surface–atmosphere exchange and secondary circulations that couple the isolated forest to the surrounding shrubland. The large-eddy simulations feature a grid resolution that resolves the forest canopy in several layers, and are initialized by satellite data and Doppler lidar, eddy-covariance and radiosonde measurements. We perform three large-eddy simulations with different geostrophic wind speeds to investigate the influence of those wind speeds on the surface–atmosphere exchange. We reproduce the measured mean updrafts above the forest and mean downdrafts above the shrubland, which increase in strength with decreasing geostrophic wind speed. The largest updrafts emerge above the older, denser part of the forest, triggering secondary circulations. The spatial extent of these circulations does not cover the entire forest area, although we observe a reduced aerodynamic resistance in the regions of updraft. Our simulations indicate that the enhanced surface–atmosphere exchange of the Yatir forest is not sufficient to compensate for the increased net radiation, due to the lower albedo of the forest with respect to the surroundings, resulting in higher air temperatures inside the forest. However, the difference between the forest and shrubland temperatures decreases with increasing geostrophic wind speed due to reduction in the aerodynamic resistance.     

Evaluation of Two Energy Balance Closure Parametrizations

A general lack of energy balance closure indicates that tower-based eddy-covariance (EC) measurements underestimate turbulent heat fluxes, which calls for robust correction schemes. Two parametrization approaches that can be found in the literature were tested using data from the Canadian Twin Otter research aircraft and from tower-based measurements of the German Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO) programme. Our analysis shows that the approach of Huang et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol 127:273–292, 2008), based on large-eddy simulation, is not applicable to typical near-surface flux measurements because it was developed for heights above the surface layer and over homogeneous terrain. The biggest shortcoming of this parametrization is that the grid resolution of the model was too coarse so that the surface layer, where EC measurements are usually made, is not properly resolved. The empirical approach of Panin and Bernhofer (Izvestiya Atmos Oceanic Phys 44:701–716, 2008) considers landscape-level roughness heterogeneities that induce secondary circulations and at least gives a qualitative estimate of the energy balance closure. However, it does not consider any feature of landscape-scale heterogeneity other than surface roughness, such as surface temperature, surface moisture or topography. The failures of both approaches might indicate that the influence of mesoscale structures is not a sufficient explanation for the energy balance closure problem. However, our analysis of different wind-direction sectors shows that the upwind landscape-scale heterogeneity indeed influences the energy balance closure determined from tower flux data. We also analyzed the aircraft measurements with respect to the partitioning of the “missing energy” between sensible and latent heat fluxes and we could confirm the assumption of scalar similarity only for Bowen ratios $\approx $ 1.     

Estimating the effects of spatial variability of infiltration on the output of a distributed runoff and soil erosion model using Monte Carlo methods

Monte Carlo procedures were used to evaluate the effects of spatial variations in the values of the infiltration parameter on the results of the ANSWERS distributed runoff and erosion model. Simulation results obtained were compared with measured values. Field infiltration measurements indicated spatial correlation at much smaller distances than the size of an element. Therefore, at first only the error of the mean had to be taken into consideration for block infiltration rates. Consequently, not only single hydrographs were produced, but also error bands. Secondly, nine other hypothetical spatial correlation structures were also evaluated using Monte Carlo methods. in particular at low nugget variances, increasing spatial correlation of infiltration resulted in increasing coefficients of variation in model outputs. In general, rainstorms with low rainfall intensities were more difficult to simulate accurately than extreme events with high rainfall intensities. This is explained by the greater influence of the infiltration uncertainties at low rainfall intensities.     

Evaluation of energy balance closure adjustment methods by independent evapotranspiration estimates from lysimeters and hydrological simulations

Non‐closure of the surface energy balance is a frequently observed phenomenon of hydrometeorological field measurements, when using the eddy‐covariance method, which can be ascribed to an underestimation of the turbulent fluxes. Several approaches have been proposed in order to adjust the measured fluxes for this apparent systematic error. However, there are uncertainties about partitioning of the energy balance residual between the sensible and latent heat flux and whether such a correction should be applied on 30‐min data or longer time scales. The data for this study originate from two grassland sites in southern Germany, where measurements from weighable lysimeters are available as reference. The adjusted evapotranspiration rates are also compared with joint energy and water balance simulations using a physically based distributed hydrological model. We evaluate two adjustment methods: the first one preserves the Bowen ratio and the correction factor is determined on a daily basis. The second one attributes a smaller portion of the residual energy to the latent heat flux than to the sensible heat flux for closing the energy balance for every 30‐min flux integration interval. Both methods lead to an improved agreement of the eddy‐covariance based fluxes with the independent lysimeter estimates and the physically based model simulations. The first method results in a better comparability of evapotranspiration rates, and the second method leads to a smaller overall bias. These results are similar between both sites despite considerable differences in terrain complexity and grassland management. Moreover, we found that a daily adjustment factor leads to less scatter than a complete partitioning of the residual for every half‐hour time interval. The vertical temperature gradient in the surface layer and friction velocity were identified as important predictors for a potential future parameterisation of the energy balance residual.