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The representation of subgrid-scale surface heterogeneities in numerical weather and climate models has been a challenging problem for more than a decade. The Evaporation at Grid and Pixel Scale (EVA-GRIPS) project adds to the numerous studies on vegetation-atmosphere interaction processes through a comprehensive field campaign and through simulation studies with land surface schemes and mesoscale models. The mixture of surface types in the test area in eastern Germany is typical for larger parts of northern Central Europe. The spatial scale considered corresponds to the grid scale of a regional atmospheric weather prediction or climate model and to the pixel scale of satellite images. Area-averaged fluxes derived from point measurements, scintillometer measurements, and a helicopter-borne turbulence probe were widely consistent with respect to the sensible heat flux. The latent heat flux from the scintillometer measurements is systematically higher than the eddy covariance data. Fluxes derived from numerical simulations proved the so-called mosaic approach to be an appropriate parameterization for subgrid heterogeneity.

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.

Measurements made with a large aperture scintillometer were compared to those made using an eddy correlation system over a uniform barley field. In spite of wind profile measurements indicating that conditions were not ideal for the application of Monin–Obukhov theory, good agreement was found between the instruments for measuring sensible heat fluxes as long as an effective value for the displacement height was used in the equations. This effective value was calculated from measurements made using sonic anemometers, although these data indicated a value well outside the normally accepted range. It is suggested that this is a consequence of the changes in atmospheric turbulence produced by a hill upwind of the experimental site.

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.

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.