Evapotranspiration and heat fluxes over a patchy forest - studied using modelling and measurements

Most forests in Europe are too small to fulfill strict fetch requirements associated with idealized flux observations. As a consequence of limited fetch, the flux measured above the canopy will often deviate from the source strength underlying the measurements, i.e. observations of sensible and latent heat flux above forest downwind of a forest edge show these fluxes to be larger than the available energy over the forest (Klaassen et al. 2002, Theor. Appl. Climatol. 72, 231-243). Because such flux measurements are very often used for calibration of forest parameters or model constants, further using these parameters without a proper interpretation in mesoscale or global circulation models can results in serious bias of estimates of modelled evapotranspiration or heat fluxes from given area.
Since representative measurements focused on heterogeneous effects are scarce numerical modelling can be used to interpret the measurements. Recently, the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) model SCADIS (Sogachev et al., 2002, Tellus 54B, 784-819) has been successfully applied to analyze the mechanisms of CO2 flux formation near a forest edge for neutrally stratified conditions (Sogachev et al., 2008, Ecological. Appl. 18, 1454-1459). In the present work, we apply the SCADIS with enhanced turbulence closure including buoyancy for investigation of the spatial distribution of latent and sensible heat vertical fluxes over patchy forested terrain in Denmark during selected days in the summer period. A closer look at the result shows that though the meteorological mast is located in the middle of a forest patch by size about 1x2 km2, it is not free from uncertainties regarding energy balance closure. Comparing observed and SCADIS (1D and 3D) simulated data for the mast confirms that caution is needed when interpreting measured flux data. The approach used in this work can be utilized in interpretation of already existed experimental data and in the planning of future experiments.