Coherent eddies and temperature structure functions for three contrasting surfaces. Part II: Renewal model for sensible heat flux

Abstract

Sensible heat, latent heat, and other scalar fluxes cannot be measuredwithin short dense canopies, e.g., straw mulches, with standard approachessuch as eddy correlation, Bowen ratio-energy balance, aerodynamic, andvariance methods. However, recently developed surface renewal models, thatare based on the fact that most of the turbulent transfer within and abovecanopies is associated with large-scale coherent eddies, which are evidentas ramp patterns in scalar time series, offer a feasible solution. Wepresent a new air renewal model that calculates sensible heat flux atdifferent heights within and above a canopy from the average cubictemperature structure function, sampled at a moderate rate, and measuredaverage friction velocity. The model is calibrated and tested with datameasured above and within a Douglas-fir forest and above a straw mulch andbare soil. We show that the model describes half-hour variations ofsensible heat flux very well, both within the canopy and roughnesssublayers and in the inertial sublayer, for stable and unstable atmosphericconditions. The combined empirical coefficient that appears in the modelhas an apparently universal value of about 0.4 for all surfaces andheights, which makes application of the model particularly simple. Themodel is used to predict daytime and nighttime sensible heat flux profileswithin the straw mulch and within a small bare opening in the mulch.