The overall topic of the research described in this dissertation was the
partitioning of available energy at the Earth's surface into sensible and latent heat
flux, with an emphasis on the development of techniques which utilize remotely
sensed data. One of the major objectives was to investigate the modification of
existing techniques, developed over agricultural surfaces, to "natural" ecosystems (i.e.,
non -agricultural vegetation types with variable and incomplete canopy cover).
Ground -based measurements of surface fluxes, vegetation cover, and surface
and root -zone soil moisture from the First ISLSCP (International Land Surface
Climatology Program) Field Experiment (FIFE) were used to examine the factors
controlling the partitioning of energy at ground stations with contrasting surface
characteristics.
Utilizing helicopter -based and satellite -based data acquired directly over
ground -based flux stations at the FINE experimental area, relatively simple
algorithms were developed for estimating the soil heat flux and sensible heat flux
from remotely sensed data. The root mean square error (RMSE) between the
sensible heat flux computed with the remotely sensed data and the sensible heat flux
measured at the ground stations was 33 Wm 2. These algorithms were then applied
on a pixel -by -pixel basis to data from a Landsat -TM (Thematic Mapper) scene
acquired over the FIFE site on August 15, 1987 to produce spatially distributed
surface energy- balance components for the FIFE site.
A methodology for quantifying the effect of spatial scaling on parameters
derived from remotely sensed data was presented. As an example of the utility of this approach, NDVI values for the 1,IFE experimental area were computed with
input data of variable spatial resolution. The differences in the values of NDVI
computed at different spatial resolutions were accurately predicted by an equation
which quantified those differences in terms of variability in input observations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/617639 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Humes, Karen Sue, Sorooshian, Soroosh |
| Contributors | Department of Hydrology & Water Resources, The University of Arizona |
| Publisher | Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Technical Report |
| Source | Provided by the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources. |
| Rights | Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents |
| Relation | Technical Reports on Hydrology and Water Resources, No. 93-030 |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds