Estimation of water vapour- and carbon dioxide exchange over a heterogeneous Danish landscape

Water vapour and carbon dioxide are two of the gases of largest significance for the Earth climate and water balance. Both belongs to the most important greenhouse gases and are central for the carbon and water cycles. During the last decade, a large number of monitoring stations (approximately 140) has been set up to measure the exchange of these gases between the land surface and the atmosphere, however areal estimates are still limited. The purpose of the present project is to test and compare different methodologies to quantify the areal vertical exchange of water vapour and CO2 in the land - atmosphere system. Apart from atmospheric flux measurements in agricultural, forest and urban regions at the island of Sjælland (7330 km2), both airborne flux measurements, scintillometer data and a boundary layer methodology are included in the project. In the latter approach, daily measurements of water vapour and CO2 contents in the lower atmosphere provide the basis to calculate large scale land surface fluxes. Data from Earth observation satellites are included in the developed models to calculate surface fluxes. The goal of the project is to precisely estimate and upscale the processes that are governing the carbon budget of Sjælland. By the inclusion of Earth observation data for GIS based agro/ecohydrological modeling of atmospheric water vapour - and CO2 fluxes, the project also bear important potential to improve water resource predictions at Sjælland.