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In the first part, this paper synthesises the main results from a series of previous studies on the closure of the local energy balance at low-vegetation sites during the LITFASS-2003 experiment. A residual of up to 25% of the available energy has been found which cannot be fully explained either by the measurement uncertainty of the single components of the surface energy balance or by the length of the flux-averaging period. In the second part, secondary circulations due to heterogeneities in the surface characteristics (roughness, thermal and moisture properties) are discussed as a possible cause for the observed energy balance non-closure. This hypothesis seems to be supported from the fluxes derived from area-averaging measurement techniques (scintillometers, aircraft).

Micrometeorological measurements (including eddy-covariance measurements of the surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat) were performed during the LITFASS-2003 experiment at 13 field sites over different types of land use (forest, lake, grassland, various agricultural crops) in a 20 × 20 km2 area around the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg (MOL) of the German Meteorological Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD). Significant differences in the energy fluxes could be found between the major land surface types (forest, farmland, water), but also between the different agricultural crops (cereals, rape, maize). Flux ratios between the different surfaces changed during the course of the experiment as a result of increased water temperature of the lake, changing soil moisture, and of the vegetation development at the farmland sites. The measurements over grass performed at the boundary-layer field site Falkenberg of the MOL were shown to be quite representative for the farmland part of the area. Measurements from the 13 sites were composed into a time series of the area-averaged surface flux by taking into account the data quality of the single flux values from the different sites and the relative occurrence of each surface type in the area. Such composite fluxes could be determined for about 80% of the whole measurement time during the LITFASS-2003 experiment. Comparison of these aggregated surface fluxes with area-averaged fluxes from long-range scintillometer measurements and from airborne measurements showed good agreement.

An incoherent scintillometer with 0.31-m aperture was tested along a 9.8-km path over grassland. Scintillometer derived heat fluxes were compared with in situ eddy covariance measurements. Albeit with considerable scatter, the fluxes compared well during daytime. During nighttime credible fluxes are also obtained. The scintillometer functioned satisfactory for 96␘f the 7-week period

To test the applicability of the scintillation method over a heterogeneous area an experiment was carried out in the summer of 1998 in Flevoland (The Netherlands). In the patchy area only four crops were grown namely sugar beet, potatoes, wheat and onions. From eddy covariance measurements it was found that the heterogeneity was mainly caused by differences in thermal properties. No variations in the aerodynamics roughness length were observed. Two large aperture scintillometers were installed at a height of 11.6 and 20.4 m. A good resemblance was found between the sensible heat fluxes derived from both LAS instruments and the area-averaged fluxes obtained from the in-situ eddy covariance measurements. The slight underestimation of the lower LAS could be assessed using a blending height model and an analytical footprint model. The results also indicated that when scintillometer measurements are made below the blending height the violation to Monin–Obukhov Similarity Theory is small and that reasonable fluxes can be obtained from path-averaged structure parameters.

As part of an international experiment in which several methods of estimating the actual evapotranspiration were compared, two large aperture scintillometers (LAS) and a small micrometeorological station were installed in the Gediz Basin near Menemen, Turkey during the summer of 1998 by the Meteorology and Air Quality Group of the Wageningen Agricultural University. The instruments will be used to provide “ground-truth” sensible heat fluxes. At the first site, a LAS was set up over a transect of the valley from Belen to Suluklu with a path length of 2700 m. The second LAS (a path length of 670 m) together with a small micrometeorological station was installed in an irrigated cotton field west of the first site. However, due to experimental problems the scintillation method for the second site could not be applied. Instead the variance method, which just as the scintilliation method is based on the Monin–Obukhov similarity theory, was used. The 24 h average sensible heat fluxes of the valley for the entire growing season are presented and special attention is given to the LANDSAT overpass dates June 26 and August 29. The results presented in this paper show that the scintillometer is a robust and reliable “stand-alone” system that is able to provide operational estimates of areal averaged sensible heat fluxes.

The saturation aspects of a large aperture (0.3 m) scintillometer operating over a 10-km path were investigated. Measurements were made over mainly forested, hilly terrain with typical maximum sensible heat fluxes of 300-400 W m(-2), and over flat terrain with mainly grass, and typical maximum heat fluxes of 100-150 W m(-2). Scintillometer-based fluxes were compared with eddy-correlation observations. Two different schemes for calculating the reduction of scintillation caused by saturation were applied: one based on the work of Hill and Clifford, the other based on Frehlich and Ochs. Without saturation correction, the scintillation fluxes were lower than the eddy-correlation fluxes; the saturation correction according to Frehlich and Ochs increased the scintillometer fluxes to an unrealistic level. Correcting the fluxes after the theory of the Hill and Clifford gave satisfying results.

The performance of a combined large aperture scintillometer (LAS) and a millimetre wave scintillometer (MWS) for estimating surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat over natural landscape is investigated, using data gathered during LITFASS-2003. For this purpose the LAS–MWS system was installed in a moderate heterogeneous landscape over a path length of 4.7 km with an effective beam height of 43 m. The derived surface fluxes have been compared with aggregated eddy-covariance (EC) measurements. The fluxes of sensible and latent heat from the LAS–MWS combination, as well as sensible heat fluxes of the single LAS, agreed fairly well with the EC-based fluxes, considering the uncertainties of the similarity stability functions and observed energy imbalance.

Line-averaged values of the structure parameters of temperature and humidity, CT2 and Cq2, were estimated from simultaneous measurements with an optical and a microwave scintillometer over a path of 4.7 km length at the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg during the LITFASS-2003 experiment. By cross-correlating the detected signals of the two scintillometers, the temperature-humidity structure parameter, CTq, and the temperature-humidity correlation, rTq, were also derived directly from the measurements. Comparison with corresponding values obtained from local measurements with an eddy-covariance system on a meteorological tower show a consistent behaviour in time (with some exceptions especially for Cq2 and rTq during nighttime). The deviations are of a magnitude between 20 % and 35 % of the typical daytime values of the structure parameters.

An evapotranspiration method comparison was carried out by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI, Sri Lanka), at two locations in the Gediz Basin, Turkey, in the period from May to September 1998. In the IWMI study a number of ground-based techniques were compared with results obtained by remote sensing methods. Recently, a search of the satellite active archive yielded over 70 high quality level 1b images from NOAA/AVHRR over the same time period. The processing of these images with the SEBAL algorithm enabled us to build up a detailed time series of sensible and latent heat fluxes for a period of 120 days. In this paper a comparison is made between the sensible and latent heat fluxes determined from the present series of NOAA-14/AVHRR images and the results obtained earlier from various other prediction methods applied during the 1998 IWMI project. Specifically, the NOAA/SEBAL results are assessed against the scintillometer and temperature fluctuation methods. The results show that the NOAA derived evapotranspiration values follow the seasonal irrigation cycle quite well and correspond closely to the Landsat derived values, although they are lower than the results obtained with the traditional crop factor and Penman¿Monteith methods.

A large-aperture scintillometer (LAS) was operated continuously during a period of more than one year over a heterogeneous land surface in Central Europe at the transition between marine and continental climates. The LAS measurements of the refractive index structure parameter, C N2, were used to estimate the sensible heat flux. This was possible for about 60 to 80␘f the time under daytime conditions during the summer, with lower values obtained for the cold season (October to March). Using data from a three-week long field experiment, the LAS-based heat flux was compared with a weighed average of local heat flux measurements over the main land use classes (forest, agriculture, water) in the area, resulting in reasonable agreement. LAS-based heat fluxes were then used for comparison with the heat flux values of a numerical weather prediction model. An over-prediction of the model heat flux was found in summer but the modelled values were lower than the LAS derived data during the cold season

The friction velocity (u*) and the sensible heat flux density (H) determined with a displaced-beam small aperture scintillometer (DBSAS) and a hot-film eddy correlation system are compared. Random errors in the DBSAS are relatively small, compared to scatter found with two eddy-correlation systems. Assuming that the hot-film system yields the `true' fluxes, the DBSAS appears to overestimate u* when u* is less than ≈0.2 m s-1 and to underestimate u* at high wind speeds. This implies that the DBSAS measurements of the inner scale length of turbulence, l0, a direct measure for the dissipation rate of kinetic turbulent energy, are biased. Possible causes for these results are discussed in detail. A correction procedure is presented to account for effects of random noise and of so-called inactive turbulence or sensor vibrations. The errors in u* cause errors in the DBSAS measurements of the structure parameter of temperature CT2. The derived H appears to be less sensitive to errors in l0 and CT2, because errors in these quantities tend to cancel out.

A large aperture scintillometer (LAS) and radio wave scintillometer (RWS) were installed over a heterogeneous area to test the applicability of the scintillation method. The heterogeneity in the area, which consisted of many plots, was mainly caused by differences in thermal properties of the crops; the variations in the aerodynamic roughness length were small. The water vapour fluxes derived from the combined LAS-RWS system, also known as the two-wavelength method, agreed fairly well with the aggregated water vapour fluxes derived from in-situ eddy covariance measurements. The water vapour fluxes derived from a stand-alone LAS are also presented. It was found that a single LAS and an estimate of the area averaged available energy (using a simple parameterisation scheme) can provide also reasonable area-averaged water vapour fluxes.