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While yearly budgets of CO2 flux (Fc) and evapotranspiration (ET) above vegetation can be readily obtained from eddy‐covariance measurements, the separate quantification of their soil (respiration and evaporation) and canopy (photosynthesis and transpiration) components remains an elusive yet critical research objective. In this work, we investigate four methods to partition observed total fluxes into soil and plant sources: two new and two existing approaches that are based solely on analysis of conventional high frequency eddy‐covariance (EC) data. The physical validity of the assumptions of all four methods, as well as their performance under different scenarios, are tested with the aid of large‐eddy simulations, which are used to replicate eddy‐covariance field experiments. Our results indicate that canopies with large, exposed soil patches increase the mixing and correlation of scalars; this negatively impacts the performance of the partitioning methods, all of which require some degree of uncorrelatedness between CO2 and water vapor. In addition, best performances for all partitioning methods were found when all four flux components are non‐negligible, and measurements are collected close to the canopy top. Methods relying on the water‐use efficiency (W) perform better when W is known a priori, but are shown to be very sensitive to uncertainties in this input variable especially when canopy fluxes dominate. We conclude by showing how the correlation coefficient between CO2 and water vapor can be used to infer the reliability of different W parameterizations. Plain Language Summary: Forests and vegetated ecosystems play a crucial role in the water and carbon cycles. During the day, plants absorb CO2 through photosynthesis (P), releasing water vapor via transpiration (T). On the other hand, the soil underneath contributes to CO2 through respiration (R), and moist soil leads to water evaporation (E). While meteorological towers currently measure total CO2 (Fc = P + R) and water vapor (ET = E + T) exchanges, distinguishing the contributions from soil respiration and evaporation versus tree photosynthesis and transpiration remains a challenge. This study addresses this gap by investigating methods to separate Fc and ET into their individual components. Using a simulated forest environment with a virtual meteorological tower, the study tests four methods to estimate respiration, photosynthesis, evaporation, and transpiration. Results reveal that more reliable estimates are obtained when measurements are collected close to the forest top, especially in the absence of significant vegetation gaps that lead to strong mixing. Additionally, the study highlights the expected errors in two approaches when faced with real‐world uncertainties. By elucidating optimal conditions for method application, this research contributes to advancing our understanding of ecosystem‐atmosphere interactions and informs the accurate measurement of vital components in the carbon and water cycles. Key Points: The performance of four partitioning methods are explored with aid of large‐eddy simulationsThe methods' performance is shown to depend on flux ratios, canopy sparseness, and measurement heightThe correlation coefficient between CO2 and water vapor is shown to help inform the choice of water‐use efficiency models [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vegetation and atmosphere processes are coupled through a myriad of interactions linking plant transpiration, carbon dioxide assimilation, turbulent transport of moisture, heat and atmospheric constituents, aerosol formation, moist convection, and precipitation. Advances in our understanding are hampered by discipline barriers and challenges in understanding the role of small spatiotemporal scales. In this perspective, we propose to study the atmosphere–ecosystem interaction as a continuum by integrating leaf to regional scales (multiscale) and integrating biochemical and physical processes (multiprocesses). The challenges ahead are (1) How do clouds and canopies affect the transferring and in‐canopy penetration of radiation, thereby impacting photosynthesis and biogenic chemical transformations? (2) How is the radiative energy spatially distributed and converted into turbulent fluxes of heat, moisture, carbon, and reactive compounds? (3) How do local (leaf‐canopy‐clouds, 1 m to kilometers) biochemical and physical processes interact with regional meteorology and atmospheric composition (kilometers to 100 km)? (4) How can we integrate the feedbacks between cloud radiative effects and plant physiology to reduce uncertainties in our climate projections driven by regional warming and enhanced carbon dioxide levels? Our methodology integrates fine‐scale explicit simulations with new observational techniques to determine the role of unresolved small‐scale spatiotemporal processes in weather and climate models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CloudRoots field experiment was designed to obtain a comprehensive observational dataset that includes soil, plant, and atmospheric variables to investigate the interaction between a heterogeneous land surface and its overlying atmospheric boundary layer at the sub-hourly and sub-kilometre scale. Our findings demonstrate the need to include measurements at leaf level to better understand the relations between stomatal aperture and evapotranspiration (ET) during the growing season at the diurnal scale. Based on these observations, we obtain accurate parameters for the mechanistic representation of photosynthesis and stomatal aperture. Once the new parameters are implemented, the model reproduces the stomatal leaf conductance and the leaf-level photosynthesis satisfactorily. At the canopy scale, we find a consistent diurnal pattern on the contributions of plant transpiration and soil evaporation using different measurement techniques. From highly resolved vertical profile measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other state variables, we infer a profile of the CO2 assimilation in the canopy with non-linear variations with height. Observations taken with a laser scintillometer allow us to quantify the non-steadiness of the surface turbulent fluxes during the rapid changes driven by perturbation of photosynthetically active radiation by cloud flecks. More specifically, we find 2 min delays between the cloud radiation perturbation and ET. To study the relevance of advection and surface heterogeneity for the land–atmosphere interaction, we employ a coupled surface–atmospheric conceptual model that integrates the surface and upper-air observations made at different scales from leaf to the landscape. At the landscape scale, we calculate a composite sensible heat flux by weighting measured fluxes with two different land use categories, which is consistent with the diurnal evolution of the boundary layer depth. Using sun-induced fluorescence measurements, we also quantify the spatial variability of ET and find large variations at the sub-kilometre scale around the CloudRoots site. Our study shows that throughout the entire growing season, the wide variations in stomatal opening and photosynthesis lead to large diurnal variations of plant transpiration at the leaf, plant, canopy, and landscape scales. Integrating different advanced instrumental techniques with modelling also enables us to determine variations of ET that depend on the scale where the measurement were taken and on the plant growing stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CloudRoots field experiment was designed to obtain a comprehensive observational data set that includes soil, plant and atmospheric variables to investigate the interaction between a heterogeneous land surface and its overlying atmospheric boundary layer at the sub- hourly and sub-kilometre scale. Our findings demonstrate the need to include measurements at leaf level in order to obtain accurate parameters for the mechanistic representation of photosynthesis and stomatal aperture. Once the new parameters are implemented, the mechanistic model reproduces satisfactorily the stomatal leaf conductance and the leaf-level photosynthesis. At the canopy scale, we find a consistent diurnal pattern on the contributions of plant transpiration and soil evaporation using different measurement techniques. From the high frequency and vertical resolution state variables and CO2 measurements, we infer a profile of the plant assimilation that shows a strong non- linear behaviour. Observations taken by a laser scintillometer allow us to quantify the non-steadiness of the surface turbulent fluxes during the rapid changes driven by perturbation of the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) by clouds, the so-called cloud flecks. More specifically, we find two-minute delays between the cloud radiation perturbation and ET. The impact of surface heterogeneity was further studied using ET estimates infer from the sun-induced fluorescence data and show small variation of ET in spite of the plant functional type differences. To study the relevance of advection and surface heterogeneity on the land-atmosphere interaction, we employ a coupled surface-atmospheric conceptual model that integrates the surface and upper-air observations taken at different scales: from the leaf-level to the landscape. At the landscape scale, we obtain the representative sensible heat flux that is consistent with the evolution of the boundary-layer depth evolution. Finally, throughout the entire growing season, the wide variations in stomatal opening and photosynthesis lead to large variations of plant transpiration at the leaf and canopy scales. The use of different instrumental techniques enables us to compare the total ET at various growing stages, from booting to senescence. There is satisfactory agreement between evapotranspiration of total ET, but the values remain sensitive to the scale at which ET is measured or modelled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For an assessment of the role of soil and vegetation in the climate system, a further understanding of the flux components of H2O and CO2 (e.g., transpiration, soil respiration) and their interaction with physical conditions and physiological functioning of plants and ecosystems is necessary. To obtain magnitudes of these flux components, we applied the source partitioning approaches after Scanlon and Kustas (2010; SK10) and after Thomas et al. (2008; TH08) to high frequency eddy covariance measurements of twelve study sites including various ecosystems (croplands, grasslands, and forests) in a number of countries. Both partitioning methods are based on higher-order statistics of the H2O and CO2 fluctuations, but proceed differently to estimate transpiration, evaporation, net primary production, and soil respiration. We compared and evaluated the partitioning results obtained with SK10 and TH08 including slight modifications of both approaches. Further, we analyzed the interrelations between turbulence characteristics, site characteristics (such as plant cover type, canopy height, canopy density and measurement height), and performance of the partitioning methods. We could identify characteristics of a data set as prerequisite for a sufficient performance of the partitioning methods. SK10 had the tendency to overestimate and TH08 to underestimate soil flux components. For both methods, the partitioning of CO2 fluxes was more irregular than of H2O fluxes. Results derived with SK10 showed relatively large dependencies on estimated water use efficiency (WUE) at leaf-level, which is needed as an input. Measurements of outgoing longwave radiation used for the estimation of foliage temperature and WUE could slightly increase the quality of the partitioning results. A modification of the TH08 approach, by applying a cluster analysis for the conditional sampling of respiration/evaporation events, performed satisfactorily, but did not result in significant advantages compared to the other method versions (developed by Thomas et al., 2008). The performance of each partitioning approach was dependent on meteorological conditions, plant development, canopy height, canopy density, and measurement height. Foremost, the performance of SK10 correlated negatively with the ratio between measurement and canopy height. The performance of TH08 was more dependent on canopy height and leaf area index. It was found, that all site characteristics which increase dissimilarities between scalars enhance partitioning performance for SK10 and TH08. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to find the typical growth rate of the temperature inversion during the onset of the stable boundary layer around sunset. The sunset transition is a very challenging period for numerical weather prediction, since neither accepted theories for the convective boundary layer nor those for the stable boundary layer appear to be applicable. To gain more insight in this period, a systematic investigation of the temperature inversion growth rate is conducted. A statistical procedure is used to analyze almost 16 years of observations from the Cabauw observational tower, supported by observations from two additional sites (Dome C and Karlsruhe). The results show that, on average, the growth rate of the temperature inversion (normalized by the maximum inversion during the night) weakly declines with increasing wind speed. The observed growth rate is quantitatively consistent among the sites, and it appears insensitive to various other parameters. The results were also insensitive to the afternoon decay rate of the net radiation except when this decay rate was very weak. These observations are compared to numerical solutions of three models with increasing complexity: a bulk model, an idealized single-column model (SCM), and an operational-level SCM. It appears only the latter could reproduce qualitative features of the observations using a first-order closure. Moreover, replacing this closure with a prognostic TKE scheme substantially improved the quantitative performance. This suggests that idealized models assuming instantaneous equilibrium flux-profile relations may not aid in understanding this period, since history effects may qualitatively affect the dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform direct numerical simulation of the Couette flow as a model for the stable boundary layer. The flow evolution is investigated for combinations of the (bulk) Reynolds number and the imposed surface buoyancy flux. First, we establish what the similarities and differences are between applying a fixed buoyancy difference (Dirichlet) and a fixed buoyancy flux (Neumann) as boundary conditions. Moreover, two distinct parameters were recently proposed for the turbulent-to-laminar transition: the Reynolds number based on the Obukhov length and the ''shear capacity,'' a velocity-scale ratio based on the buoyancy flux maximum. We study how these parameters relate to each other and to the atmospheric boundary layer. The results show that in a weakly stratified equilibrium state, the flow statistics are virtually the same between the different types of boundary conditions. However, at stronger stratification and, more generally, in nonequilibrium conditions, the flow statistics do depend on the type of boundary condition imposed. In the case of Neumann boundary conditions, a clear sensitivity to the initial stratification strength is observed because of the existence of multiple equilibriums, while for Dirichlet boundary conditions, only one statistically steady turbulent equilibrium exists for a particular set of boundary conditions. As in previous studies, we find that when the imposed surface flux is larger than the maximum buoyancy flux, no turbulent steady state occurs. Analytical investigation and simulation data indicate that this maximum buoyancy flux converges for increasing Reynolds numbers, which suggests a possible extrapolation to the atmospheric case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to find the typical growth rate of the temperature inversion during the onset of the stable boundary layer around sunset. The sunset transition is a very challenging period for numerical weather prediction, since neither accepted theories for the convective boundary layer nor those for the stable boundary layer appear to be applicable. To gain more insight in this period, a systematic investigation of the temperature inversion growth rate is conducted. A statistical procedure is used to analyze almost 16 years of observations from the Cabauw observational tower, supported by observations from two additional sites (Dome C and Karlsruhe). The results show that, on average, the growth rate of the temperature inversion (normalized by the maximum inversion during the night) weakly declines with increasing wind speed. The observed growth rate is quantitatively consistent among the sites, and it appears insensitive to various other parameters. The results were also insensitive to the afternoon decay rate of the net radiation except when this decay rate was very weak. These observations are compared to numerical solutions of three models with increasing complexity: a bulk model, an idealized single-column model (SCM), and an operational-level SCM. It appears only the latter could reproduce qualitative features of the observations using a first-order closure. Moreover, replacing this closure with a prognostic TKE scheme substantially improved the quantitative performance. This suggests that idealized models assuming instantaneous equilibrium flux-profile relations may not aid in understanding this period, since history effects may qualitatively affect the dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conceptual model is used in combination with observational analysis to understand regime transitions of near-surface temperature inversions at night as well as in Arctic conditions. The model combines a surface energy budget with a bulk parameterization for turbulent heat transport. Energy fluxes or feedbacks due to soil and radiative heat transfer are accounted for by a "lumped parameter closure," which represents the "coupling strength" of the system. Observations from Cabauw, Netherlands, and Dome C, Antarctica, are analyzed. As expected, inversions are weak for strong winds, whereas large inversions are found under weak-wind conditions. However, a sharp transition is found between those regimes, as it occurs within a narrow wind range. This results in a typical S-shaped dependency. The conceptual model explains why this characteristic must be a robust feature. Differences between the Cabauw and Dome C cases are explained from differences in coupling strength (being weaker in the Antarctic). For comparison, a realistic column model is run. As findings are similar to the simple model and the observational analysis, it suggests generality of the results. Theoretical analysis reveals that, in the transition zone near the critical wind speed, the response time of the system to perturbations becomes large. As resilience to perturbations becomes weaker, it may explain why, within this wind regime, an increase of scatter is found. Finally, the so-called heat flux duality paradox is analyzed. It is explained why numerical simulations with prescribed surface fluxes show a dynamical response different from more realistic surface-coupled systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By characterizing the dynamics of a convective boundary layer above a relatively sparse and uniform orchard canopy, we investigated the impact of the roughness-sublayer (RSL) representation on the predicted diurnal variability of surface fluxes and state variables. Our approach combined numerical experiments, using an atmospheric mixed-layer model including a land-surface-vegetation representation, and measurements from the Canopy Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (CHATS) field experiment near Dixon, California. The RSL is parameterized using an additional factor in the standard Monin-Obukhov similarity theory flux-profile relationships that takes into account the canopy influence on the atmospheric flow. We selected a representative case characterized by southerly wind conditions to ensure well-developed RSL over the orchard canopy. We then investigated the sensitivity of the diurnal variability of the boundary-layer dynamics to the changes in the RSL key scales, the canopy adjustment length scale, Lc, and the β=u*/∣U∣ ratio at the top of the canopy due to their stability and dependence on canopy structure. We found that the inclusion of the RSL parameterization resulted in improved prediction of the diurnal evolution of the near-surface mean quantities (e.g. up to 50% for the wind velocity) and transfer (drag) coefficients. We found relatively insignificant effects on the modelled surface fluxes (e.g. up to 5?% for the friction velocity, while 3% for the sensible and latent heat), which is due to the compensating effect between the mean gradients and the drag coefficients, both of which are largely affected by the RSL parameterization. When varying Lc (from 10 to 20m) and β (from 0.25 to 0.4m), based on observational evidence, the predicted friction velocity is found to vary by up to 25% and the modelled surface-energy fluxes (sensible heat, SH, and latent heat of evaporation, LE) vary up to 2 and 9%. Consequently, the boundary-layer height varies up to 6%. Furthermore, our analysis indicated that to interpret the CHATS measurements above the canopy, the contributions of non-local effects such as entrainment, subsidence and the advection of heat and moisture over the CHATS site need to be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great variety of similarity functions for the structure parameter of temperature ( $$C_{T}^2$$ ) have been proposed in the literature. They differ in the way they were derived from the data and in the characteristics of the dataset used for their derivation (surface type, observation level, stability range). In this study, we use one single dataset (CASES-99 experiment) and investigate the impact on the similarity functions of applying various regression approaches, and measuring at different heights and within different stability ranges. We limit ourselves to similarity functions under unstable conditions, and evaluate only the most common shape that describes the relation with two coefficients ( $$f\left( z/L\right) =c_{1} \left( 1-c_{2} {z}/{L}\right) ^{-2/3}$$ , where $$z$$ is the height, and $$L$$ is the Obukhov length and a measure of the stability, and $$c_{1}$$ and $$c_{2}$$ are the regression coefficients). The results show that applying various regression approaches has an impact on the regression coefficients $$c_{1}$$ and $$c_{2}$$ . Thus studies should always specify the regression approach when presenting similarity relations. We suggest use of an orthogonal distance regression method such that uncertainties in $$-z/L$$ are also taken into account, to apply this to the logarithmic transformation of both dimensionless groups, and to use a weighted dataset such that unreliable data points have a smaller influence on the fit. Dividing the dataset into eight height ( $$z$$ ) and eight stability ( $$-{1/L}$$ classes) classes, we show that the observation height and the stability range has an impact on the coefficients too. This implies that variations in $$c_{1}$$ and $$c_{2}$$ found in the literature may result from variations in the height and stability ranges among the datasets. Furthermore, application of the coefficients on a dataset obtained at a different height or within a different stability range has to be made with care. Finally, the variation in the coefficients between the classes indicates that the Monin-Obukhov similarity function for $$C_{T}^2$$ is not sufficiently described by the two-coefficient function used here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the influence of surface friction on the inertial oscillation (IO) of an extratropical, non-growing, convective boundary layer (CBL), we paid particular attention to the stability-dependent interactive coupling of shear-induced turbulence and turbulent friction, which leads to a nonlinear relationship between friction and velocity. We showed that in contrast to common perception, IO damping is controlled not only by friction but also by the dependence of friction on velocity. Furthermore, we found that surface friction not only causes damping but also modifies the restoring force. Using these basic principles, we studied the oscillatory properties (equilibrium, periodicity and damping) of the CBL by means of a model based on Monin-Obukhov surface-layer similarity (MOS) and the mixed-layer approximation. We found that the model complies with a quadratic surface stress-velocity relationship (QS) in the neutral limit, and a linear surface stress-velocity relationship (LS) in the proximity of the free-convective limit. Dynamically, the LS leads to a harmonic oscillation with a constant periodicity and exponential damping of the IO. However, the QS displays rather complex anharmonic behaviour; in comparison with the LS it produces a 50% stronger overall damping and a 100% larger contribution to the restoring force. Considering CBLs of arbitrary stability, we found that the MOS stress-velocity relation can be very well approximated by a much simpler linear combination of the LS and the QS which, respectively, represent the convective and the shear-induced contributions to friction. This enabled us to link the set of the external parameters (surface roughness, surface buoyancy flux and boundary layer depth) to a set of three effective parameters: the equilibrium velocity, the convective friction constant and the neutral friction constant. Together with the Coriolis coefficient, these parameters completely determine the IO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, spectral techniques to obtain crosswinds from a single large-aperture scintillometer (SLAS) time series are investigated. The crosswind is defined as the wind component perpendicular to a path. A scintillometer obtains a path-averaged estimate of the crosswind. For certain applications this can be advantageous (e.g., monitoring crosswinds along airport runways). The essence of the spectral techniques lies in the fact that the scintillation power spectrum shifts linearly along the frequency domain as a function of the crosswind. Three different algorithms are used, which are called herein the corner frequency (CF), maximum frequency (MF), and cumulative spectrum (CS) techniques. The algorithms track the frequency shift of a characteristic point in different representations of the scintillation power spectrum. The spectrally derived crosswinds compare well with sonic anemometer estimates. The CS algorithm obtained the best results for the crosswind when compared with the sonic anemometer. However, the MF algorithm was most robust in obtaining the crosswind. Over short time intervals (<1 min) the crosswind can be obtained with the CS algorithm using wavelet instead of fast Fourier transformation to calculate the power scintillation spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial estimates of actual evapotranspiration are useful for calculating the water balance of river basins, quantifying hydrological services provided by ecosystems, and assessing the hydrological impacts of land-use practices. To provide this information, the authors estimate actual evapotranspiration in central Bolivia with a remote sensing algorithm [Surface Energy Balance Algorithms for Land (SEBAL)]. SEBAL was adapted for the effects of topography (particularly for elevation, slope, and aspect) and atmospheric properties on incoming solar radiation. Instantaneous fluxes are converted to daily and annual fluxes using reference evapotranspiration. The required input data consist of meteorological data and satellite data. Results show more evapotranspiration for humid regions and less evapotranspiration for dry regions and deforested land. Actual evapotranspiration estimates are compared with annual precipitation measurements from 27 meteorological observations. In case annual actual evapotranspiration is estimated correctly, it must be lower than the precipitation measurements. This is the case for 23 stations. The remaining four stations are all located at higher altitudes (>2700 m). Unfortunately, no actual evapotranspiration measurements are available for additional validation purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In land surface models, which account for the energy balance at the land surface, subsurface heat transport is an important component that reciprocally influences ground, sensible, and latent heat fluxes and net radiation. In most models, subsurface heat transport parameterizations are commonly simplified for computational efficiency. A simplification made in all models is to disregard the sensible heat of rain, H l, and convective subsurface heat flow, q cv, i.e., the convective transport of heat through moisture redistribution. These simplifications act to decouple heat transport from moisture transport at the land surface and in the subsurface, which is not realistic. The influence of H l and q cv on the energy balance was studied using a coupled model that integrates a subsurface moisture and energy transport model with a land surface model of the land surface energy balance, showing that all components of the land surface energy balance depend on H l The strength of the dependence is related to the rainfall rate and the temperature difference between the rain water and the soil surface. The rain water temperature is a parameter rarely measured in the field that introduces uncertainty in the calculations and was approximated using the either air or wet bulb temperatures in different simulations. In addition, it was shown that the lower boundary condition for closing the problem of subsurface heat transport, including convection, has strong implications on the energy balance under dynamic equilibrium conditions. Comparison with measured data from the Meteostation Haarweg, Wageningen, the Netherlands, shows good agreement and further underscores the importance of a more tightly coupled subsurface hydrology-energy balance formulation in land surface models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Routine measurement of spatially averaged surface fluxes of sensible heat (H) in river basins is now feasible. These fluxes, when combined with net radiation estimates, can be used to derive areally averaged actual evapotranspiration (ET). The scintillation method is shown to be promising method for estimating areally averaged sensible heat fluxes. The large aperture scintillometer (LAS) is an optical device used to monitor fluctuations in refractive index of the turbulent atmosphere over a relatively large area. The study reported here has estimated ET fluxes for an area of mixed vegetation at Horana, a field site about 40 km southeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka. ET estimates derived from the scintillometer and net radiometer were compared with estimates obtained from a remote sensing based surface energy balance algorithm for land (SEBAL). The SEBAL estimating of ET were derived using NOAA satellite images without any a priori calibration. The average deviation of ET estimates between SEBAL and LAS for 10-day periods was 17%. However, this deviation fell to 1% when monthly estimates were considered. This suggests regional ET values derived from remote sensing are reasonable estimates, however, the LAS was used in only one agro-ecosystem to validate the SEBAL model. The LAS is a low cost alternative to other methods of estimating heat fluxes for use in basin scale water use studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]