Time difference methods for monitoring regional scale heat fluxes with remote sensing

Author(s):  
William P. Kustas ◽  
George R. Diak ◽  
John M. Norman
2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 910-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Su ◽  
M. F. McCabe ◽  
E. F. Wood ◽  
Z. Su ◽  
J. H. Prueger

Abstract The Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model was developed to estimate land surface fluxes using remotely sensed data and available meteorology. In this study, a dual assessment of SEBS is performed using two independent, high-quality datasets that are collected during the Soil Moisture–Atmosphere Coupling Experiment (SMACEX). The purpose of this comparison is twofold. First, using high-quality local-scale data, model-predicted surface fluxes can be evaluated against in situ observations to determine the accuracy limit at the field scale using SEBS. To accomplish this, SEBS is forced with meteorological data derived from towers distributed throughout the Walnut Creek catchment. Flux measurements from 10 eddy covariance systems positioned on these towers are used to evaluate SEBS over both corn and soybean surfaces. These data allow for an assessment of modeled fluxes during a period of rapid vegetation growth and varied hydrometeorology. Results indicate that SEBS can predict evapotranspiration with accuracies approaching 10%–15% of that of the in situ measurements, effectively capturing the temporal development of surface flux patterns for both corn and soybean, even when the evaporative fraction ranges between 0.50 and 0.90. Second, utilizing high-resolution remote sensing data and operational meteorology, a catchment-scale examination of model performance is undertaken. To extend the field-based assessment of SEBS, information derived from the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) and data from the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) were combined to determine regional surface energy fluxes for a clear day during the field experiment. Results from this analysis indicate that prediction accuracy was strongly related to crop type, with corn predictions showing improved estimates compared to those of soybean. Although root-mean-square errors were affected by the limited number of samples and one poorly performing soybean site, differences between the mean values of observations and SEBS Landsat-based predictions at the tower sites were approximately 5%. Overall, results from this analysis indicate much potential toward routine prediction of surface heat fluxes using remote sensing data and operational meteorology.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1516
Author(s):  
Boyang Li ◽  
Yaokui Cui ◽  
Xiaozhuang Geng ◽  
Huan Li

Evapotranspiration (ET) of soil-vegetation system is the main process of the water and energy exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface. Spatio-temporal continuous ET is vitally important to agriculture and ecological applications. Surface temperature and vegetation index (Ts-VI) triangle ET model based on remote sensing land surface temperature (LST) is widely used to monitor the land surface ET. However, a large number of missing data caused by the presence of clouds always reduces the availability of the main parameter LST, thus making the remote sensing-based ET estimation unavailable. In this paper, a method to improve the availability of ET estimates from Ts-VI model is proposed. Firstly, continuous LST product of the time series is obtained using a reconstruction algorithm, and then, the reconstructed LST is applied to the estimate ET using the Ts-VI model. The validation in the Heihe River Basin from 2009 to 2011 showed that the availability of ET estimates is improved from 25 days per year (d/yr) to 141 d/yr. Compared with the in situ data, a very good performance of the estimated ET is found with RMSE 1.23 mm/day and R2 0.6257 at point scale and RMSE 0.32 mm/day and R2 0.8556 at regional scale. This will improve the understanding of the water and energy exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface, especially under cloudy conditions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (G3) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Xi Yang ◽  
John F. Mustard ◽  
Jianwu Tang ◽  
Hong Xu

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1112
Author(s):  
Guoqing Han ◽  
Changming Dong ◽  
Junde Li ◽  
Jingsong Yang ◽  
Qingyue Wang ◽  
...  

Based on both satellite remote sensing sea surface temperature (SST) data and numerical model results, SST warming differences in the Mozambique Channel (MC) west of the Madagascar Island (MI) were found with respect to the SST east of the MI along the same latitude. The mean SST west of the MI is up to about 3.0 °C warmer than that east of the MI. The SST differences exist all year round and the maximum value appears in October. The area of the highest SST is located in the northern part of the MC. Potential factors causing the SST anomalies could be sea surface wind, heat flux and oceanic flow advection. The presence of the MI results in weakening wind in the MC and in turn causes weakening of the mixing in the upper oceans, thus the surface mixed layer depth becomes shallower. There is more precipitation on the east of the MI than that inside the MC because of the orographic effects. Different precipitation patterns and types of clouds result in different solar radiant heat fluxes across both sides of the MI. Warm water advected from the equatorial area also contribute to the SST warm anomalies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Mommertz ◽  
Lars Konen ◽  
Martin Schodlok

<p>Soil is one of the world’s most important natural resources for human livelihood as it provides food and clean water. Therefore, its preservation is of huge importance. For this purpose, a proficient regional database on soil properties is needed. The project “ReCharBo” (Regional Characterisation of Soil Properties) has the objective to combine remote sensing, geophysical and pedological methods to determine soil characteristics on a regional scale. Its aim is to characterise soils non-invasive, time and cost efficient and with a minimal number of soil samples to calibrate the measurements. Konen et al. (2021) give detailed information on the research concept and first field results in a presentation in the session “SSS10.3 Digital Soil Mapping and Assessment”. Hyperspectral remote sensing is a powerful and well known technique to characterise near surface soil properties. Depending on the sensor technology and the data quality, a wide variety of soil properties can be derived with remotely sensed data (Chabrillat et al. 2019, Stenberg et al. 2010). The project aims to investigate the effects of up and downscaling, namely which detail of information is preserved on a regional scale and how a change in scales affects the analysis algorithms and the possibility to retrieve valid soil parameter information. Thus, e.g. laboratory and field spectroscopy are applied to gain information of samples and fieldspots, respectively. Various UAV-based sensors, e.g. thermal & hyperspectral sensors, are applied to study soil properties of arable land in different study areas at field scale. Finally, airborne (helicopter) hyperspectral data will cover the regional scale. Additionally forthcoming spaceborne hyperspectral satellite data (e.g. Prisma, EnMAP, Sentinel-CHIME) are a promising outlook to gain detailed regional soil information. In this context it will be discussed how the multisensor data acquisition is best managed to optimise soil parameter retrieval. Sensor specific properties regarding time and date of acquisition as well as weather/atmospheric conditions are outlined. The presentation addresses and discusses the impact of a multisensor and multiscale remote sensing data collection regarding the results on soil parameter retrieval.</p><p> </p><p>References</p><p>Chabrillat, S., Ben-Dor, E. Cierniewski, J., Gomez, C., Schmid, T. & van Wesemael, B. (2019): Imaging Spectroscopy for Soil Mapping and Monitoring. Surveys in Geophysics 40:361–399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-019-09524-0</p><p>Stenberg, B., Viscarra Rossel, R. A., Mounem Mouazen, A. & Wetterlind, J. (2010): Visible and Near Infrared Spectroscopy in Soil Science. In: Donald L. Sparks (editor): Advances in Agronomy. Vol. 107. Academic Press:163-215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2113(10)07005-7</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Baxter ◽  
Martin Coombes ◽  
Heather Viles

<p>Maritime built heritage is threatened by natural hazards and human activities around the world. Likewise, marine wildlife is increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change and human development. Due to their age and traditional construction, maritime built heritage (e.g. historic harbours) may provide unique habitats for diverse assemblages of marine wildlife. Yet, as aspects of built heritage are often missing in assessments of marine infrastructure, identifying which heritage assets have the potential to provide the greatest ecological benefits remains a challenge. An improved understanding of the ecological importance of maritime built heritage can enhance arguments for its continued protection, maintenance and repair. At the same time, this may present new opportunities to conserve important and largely unidentified hotspots of marine biodiversity.</p><p>Using preliminary results from the Isles of Scilly, UK, this study presents a novel method for quantifying the full extent of marine engineering structures (including heritage assets) at a regional scale, and for identifying priority structures for joint biodiversity and heritage conservation.</p><p>Remote sensing data were considered alongside historic environment data and records of modern coastal defences in a rapid desk-based assessment to create a complete inventory of marine structures along the entire coastline of the Isles of Scilly. In total, 68 structures were recorded (6,180 m in length), with over half registered as heritage assets. LiDAR and aerial photography were used to determine the site characteristics of each structure (e.g. shore position). This allowed for an initial assessment of the potential ecological importance of these structures when considered alongside structural information, including building age and material. By evaluating the ecological potential and heritage value of each structure using a novel scoring system, priorities for conservation and other managed interventions are identified. This includes listed buildings and scheduled monuments that due to their construction features and shore position are most likely to support diverse marine assemblages.</p><p>Combined ecological-heritage evaluations incorporating remote sensing datasets allow for the identification of those structures with the greatest potential for the integrated conservation of built heritage and marine wildlife. Research is now needed to develop this method further, ground-truth its outputs, and test its application in other geographical locations and at varying scales.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 4385-4405 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Rawlins ◽  
A. D. McGuire ◽  
J. S. Kimball ◽  
P. Dass ◽  
D. Lawrence ◽  
...  

Abstract. A warming climate is altering land-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, with a potential for increased vegetation productivity as well as the mobilization of permafrost soil carbon stores. Here we investigate land-atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) cycling through analysis of net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and its component fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) and soil carbon residence time, simulated by a set of land surface models (LSMs) over a region spanning the drainage basin of Northern Eurasia. The retrospective simulations cover the period 1960–2009 at 0.5° resolution, which is a scale common among many global carbon and climate model simulations. Model performance benchmarks were drawn from comparisons against both observed CO2 fluxes derived from site-based eddy covariance measurements as well as regional-scale GPP estimates based on satellite remote-sensing data. The site-based comparisons depict a tendency for overestimates in GPP and ER for several of the models, particularly at the two sites to the south. For several models the spatial pattern in GPP explains less than half the variance in the MODIS MOD17 GPP product. Across the models NEP increases by as little as 0.01 to as much as 0.79 g C m−2 yr−2, equivalent to 3 to 340 % of the respective model means, over the analysis period. For the multimodel average the increase is 135 % of the mean from the first to last 10 years of record (1960–1969 vs. 2000–2009), with a weakening CO2 sink over the latter decades. Vegetation net primary productivity increased by 8 to 30 % from the first to last 10 years, contributing to soil carbon storage gains. The range in regional mean NEP among the group is twice the multimodel mean, indicative of the uncertainty in CO2 sink strength. The models simulate that inputs to the soil carbon pool exceeded losses, resulting in a net soil carbon gain amid a decrease in residence time. Our analysis points to improvements in model elements controlling vegetation productivity and soil respiration as being needed for reducing uncertainty in land-atmosphere CO2 exchange. These advances will require collection of new field data on vegetation and soil dynamics, the development of benchmarking data sets from measurements and remote-sensing observations, and investments in future model development and intercomparison studies.


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