A flux-variance based method to estimate vegetation-atmosphere exchanges under stable and unstable atmospheric conditions

This paper presents an application of the similarity relationship over a sparsely vegetated, heterogeneous ecosystem. A modified flux-variance method based on a binomial similarity relationship has been developed. The method proposed, called here as advanced, appeared capable to predict efficiently friction velocity and sensible heat flux over 24 hours monitoring periods. A correlation coefficient of 0.84 was found between the sensible heat flux measured by eddy covariance and the corresponding quantity estimated by the advanced method in all the recorded atmospheric stability conditions. Because of its applicability both in convective and stable conditions the method appeares particularly appropriate in pollution impact studies