The 14th Conference on Hydrology

P1.6
ESTIMATING SURFACE FLUXES WITH REMOTELY SENSED SURFACE TEMPERATURE DURING SGP ‘97

William P. Kustas, USDA/ARS, Beltsville, MD; and A. N. French, T. J. Schmugge, and J. H. Prueger

A two-source energy balance model using surface temperature as a key boundary condition is applied to remotely sensed surface temperature observations collected over the El Reno site during SGP ‘97. The spatially distributed fluxes using these remotely sensed observations are compared to the ground-based energy flux measurements. The remotely sensed surface temperature observations were obtained from ground-based infrared thermometers (IRTs) and from the airborne Thermal Imaging Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) instrument. With the TIMS data modeled fluxes are derived at pixel resolutions ranging from 10 m to 10 km. The fluxes determined at the various resolutions are aggregated to the scale of the whole image yielding area-average surface fluxes. Variations in the surface fluxes predicted by the model using the IRT and TIMS data at different pixel resolutions is discussed. The area-averaged fluxes derived with the remote sensing data will provide independent estimates to compare with flux predictions from atmospheric models and aircraft-based flux systems measuring regional-scale fluxes

The 14th Conference on Hydrology