Wind Speed-Independent Two-Source Energy Balance Model Based on a Theoretical Trapezoidal Relationship between Land Surface Temperature and Fractional Vegetation Cover for Evapotranspiration Estimation

Abstract

An accurate estimation of terrestrial evapotranspiration over heterogeneous surfaces using satellite imagery and few meteorological observations remains a challenging task. Wind speed (u), which is known to exhibit high temporal-spatial variation, is a significant constraint in the abovementioned task. In this study, a wind speed-independent two-source energy balance (WiTSEB) model is proposed on the basis of a theoretical land surface temperature (Tr)-fractional vegetation coverage (fc) trapezoidal space and a two-stage evapotranspiration decomposing method. The temperatures in theoretically driest boundaries of the Tr-fc trapezoid are iteratively calculated without u by using an assumption of the absence of sensible heat exchange between water-saturated surface and atmosphere in the vertical direction under the given atmospheric condition. The WiTSEB was conducted in HiWATER-MUSOEXE-12 in the middle reaches of the Heihe watershed across eight landscapes by using ASTER images. Results indicate that WiTSEB provides reliable estimates in latent heat flux (LE), with root-mean-square-errors (RMSE) and coefficient of determination of 68.6 W m−2 and 0.88, respectively. The RMSE of the ratio of the vegetation transpiration component to LE is 5.7%. Sensitivity analysis indicates WiTSEB does not aggravate the sensitivity on meteorological and remote sensing inputs in comparison with other two-source models. The errors of estimated Tr and observed soil heat flux result in LE overestimation/underestimation over parts of landscapes. The two-stage evapotranspiration decomposing method is carefully verified by ground observation.