Monitoring the Sensible Heat Flux over Urban Areas using Large Aperture Scintillometry: Case Study of Marseille City During the Escompte Experiment.

Sensible heat flux estimated by Large Aperture Scintillometry (LAS) has been tested against the more traditional eddy covariance technique over Marseille city centre, a reasonably homogeneous surface. Over the 3 week test period fluxes were found to be similar, yet less noisy for the LAS due to the spatial integration. No systematic bias between the estimates was found as a function of wind direction, indicating the homogeneity of the site. Sensitivity analysis of the required aerodynamic parameters shows that careful attention must be paid to the displacement height along the measurement path. Spatial variability of surface sensible heat flux is studied via a second LAS measurement path over the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]