Abstract
Using Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) to estimate actual evapotranspiration (ET) on a regional scale generally uses gridded meteorological data by interpolating data from meteorological stations with mathematical interpolation. The heterogeneity of underlying surfaces cannot be effectively considered when interpolating meteorological station measurements to gridded data only by mathematical interpolation. This study aims to highlight the improvement of modeled meteorological data from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale numerical model which fully considers the heterogeneity of underlying surfaces over the data from mathematical interpolation method when providing accurate meteorological input for SEBS model. Meteorological data at 1 km resolution in the Hotan Oasis were simulated and then were put into SEBS model to estimate the daily actual ET. The accuracy of WRF simulation was evaluated through comparison with data collected at the meteorological station. Results found that the WRF-simulated wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity and surface pressure correlate well with the meteorological stations measurements (R2 are 0.628, 0.8242, 0.8089 and 0.8915, respectively). Comparison between ET calculated using the meteorological data simulated from the WRF (ETa-WRF) and meteorological data interpolated from measurements at met stations (ETa-STA) showed that ETa-WRF could better reflect the ET difference between different land cover, and capture the vegetation growing trend, especially in areas with sparse vegetation, where ETa-STA intends to overestimate. In addition, ETa-WRF has less noise in barren areas compared to ETa-STA. Our findings suggest that WRF can provide more reliable meteorological input for SEBS model than mathematical interpolation method.
Highlights
Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important parameter of the water cycle [1,2], which characterizes the transport of moisture from the land surface to the atmosphere
Water 2020, 12, 9 estimation of ET and its spatial distribution is important to regional water resources management and the macrocontrol decision making [6]
To improve the ET estimated by the Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) model, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-simulated wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity, and surface pressure are used as input for SEBS
Summary
Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important parameter of the water cycle [1,2], which characterizes the transport of moisture from the land surface to the atmosphere. It consists of soil evaporation and vegetation transpiration, and plays an important role in regulating local and regional climate. Traditional ET estimation used meteorological parameters from stations [7,8,9,10,11] It can provide relatively accurate ET over the stations, the heterogeneity of underlying surface and hydrothermal transport on a large scale makes single point ET unable to meet the needs of regional research [12,13]
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