Abstract: | Heat flux data collected from the Baiyangdian Heterogeneous Field Experiment were analyzed using the footprint method. High resolution (25 m) Landsat-5 satellite imaging was used to determine the land cover as one of four surface types: farmland, lake, wetland, or village. Data from two observation sites in September 2005 were used. One site (Wangjiazhai) was characterized by highly heterogeneous surfaces in the central area of the Baiyangdian: lake/wetland. The other site (Xiongxian) was on land with more uniform surface cover. An improved Eulerian analytical flux footprint model was used to determine "source areas" of the heat fluxes measured at towers located at each site from surrounding landscapes of mixed surface types. In relative terms results show that wetland and lake areas generally contributed most to the observed heat flux at Wangjiazhai, while farmland contributed most at Xiongxian. Given the areal distribution of surface type contributions, calculations were made to obtain the magnitudes of the heat flux from lake, wetland and farmland to the total observed flux and apportioned contributions of each surface type to the sensible and latent heat fluxes. Results show that on average the sensible heat flux from wetland and farmland were comparable over the diurnal cycle, while the latent heat flux from farmland was somewhat larger by about 30-50 W m~(-2) during daytime. The latent and sensible fluxes from the lake source in daytime were about 50 W m~(-2) and 100 W m ~(-2) less, respectively, than from wetland and farmland. The results are judged reasonable and serve to demonstrate the potential for flux apportionment over heterogeneous surfaces. |