Linking evaporative fluxes from bare soil across surface viscous sublayer with the Monin–Obukhov atmospheric flux-profile estimates

Abstract

The Monin–Obukhov similarity theory (MOST) provides the theoretical basis for many “atmospheric-based” methods (such as eddy covariance and flux-profile methods) that are widely used for quantifying surface–atmosphere exchange processes. The turbulence driven and highly nonlinear profiles of momentum, air temperature, and vapor densities require complex resistance expressions applied to simple gradients deduced from a single or few height measurements. Notwithstanding the success of these atmospheric-based methods, they often leave a gap at the immediate vicinity of terrestrial surfaces where fluxes emanate. A complementary approach for quantifying surface fluxes relies on diffusive interactions across a viscous sublayer next to the surface, referred to as the “surface boundary layer (BL)” approach. This study (for bare soil) establishes formal links between these two approaches thereby offering a physically based lower boundary condition (BC) for flux-profile methods while improving the top BC for surface BL-based formulations to include atmospheric stability. The modified lower BC for flux-profile relationships links characteristics of drying evaporating surfaces considering nonlinearities between wetness and evaporative fluxes and obviates reliance on both profile measurements and empirical surface resistances. The revised top BC for surface BL methods greatly improves the agreement with published field-scale experimental measurements. The proposed reconciliation procedure improves estimation capabilities of both flux-profile and surface BL formulations, and considerably enhances their accuracy of flux estimation when applied theoretically (in the absence of measured profiles) to drying bare soil surfaces.