The evaporative fraction as a measure of surface energy partitioning

Abstract

The evaporative fraction is a ratio that expresses the proportion of turbulent flux energy over land surfaces devoted to evaporation and transpiration (evapotranspiration). It has been used to characterize the energy partition over land surfaces and has potential for inferring daily energy balance information based on mid-day remote sensing measurements. The HAPEX-MOBILHY program's SAMER system provided surface energy balance data over a range of agricultural crops and soil types. The databases from this large-scale field experiment was analyzed for the purpose of studying the behavior and daylight stability of the evaporative fraction in both ideal and general meteorological conditions. Strong linear relations were found to exist between the mid-day evaporative fraction and the daylight mean evaporative fraction. Statistical tests however rejected the hypothesis that the two quantities were equal. The relations between the evaporative fraction and the surface soil moisture as well as soil moisture in the complete vegetation root zone were also explored.