Open AccessResearch Spotlight: Comparing different land surface heat flux estimates
Author(s) -
Tretkoff Ernie
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2011eo170008
Subject(s) - environmental science , climatology , cloud cover , satellite , precipitation , land cover , water cycle , heat flux , forcing (mathematics) , atmospheric sciences , climate model , climate change , humidity , flux (metallurgy) , meteorology , land use , heat transfer , geography , cloud computing , geology , materials science , aerospace engineering , ecology , oceanography , computer science , engineering , biology , operating system , civil engineering , metallurgy , thermodynamics , physics
Land surface heat fluxes are an important component of Earth's energy and water cycle, and quantifying these fluxes can help scientists better understand climate change. These heat fluxes are affected by factors such as cloud cover, precipitation, surface radiation, air temperature, and humidity. Different methods are used to estimate monthly mean land surface heat flux. To determine how well these different methods agree with one other, Jiménez et al. present a detailed global intercomparison of 12 such products for the period 1993–1995. Some of these products are based on combining global satellite‐based data and physical formulations, while others come from atmospheric reanalysis and land surface models. The authors found that although there were some differences among the products, the products all captured the seasonality of the heat fluxes as well as the expected spatial distributions related to major climatic regimes and geographical features. Furthermore, the products correlate well with each other in general, in part due to large seasonable variability and the fact that some of the products use the same forcing data. ( Journal of Geophysical Research‐Atmospheres, doi:10.1029/2010JD014545, 2011)