Determination of Energy Fluxes Over Agricultural Surfaces

Josefina Argete


An energy budget was conducted over two kinds if surfaces: grass and corn canopy. The net radiative flux and the soil heat flux were directly measured while the latent and sensible heat flux were calculated from the vertical profiles if wet and dry-bulb temperature and wind speed. The crop storage flux was also estimated. Using the gradient or aerodynamic equations, the calculated fluxes when compared to the measured fluxes in the context of an energy budget gave an SEE = 63 Wm-2 over grass and SEE = 81 Wm-2 over corn canopy. The calculated fluxes compared reasonably well with those obtained using the Penman equations.

For an energy budget research with limited instrumentation, the aerodynamic method performed satisfactorily in estimating the daytime fluxes, when atmospheric conditions are fully convective, but failed when conditions were stably stratified as during nighttime.

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