Estimation of surface energy balance from radiant surface temperature and NOAA AVHRR sensor reflectances over agricultural and native vegetation

A model is developed to evaluate surface heat flux densities using the radiant surface temperature and red and near-infrared reflectances from the NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer sensor. Net radiation is calculated from an empirical formulation and albedo estimated from satellite observations. Infrared surface temperature is corrected to aerodynamic surface temperature in estimating the sensible heat flux and the latent flux is evaluated as the residual of the surface energy balance. When applied to relatively homogeneous agricultural and native vegetation, the model yields realistic estimates of sensible and latent heat flux density in the surface layer for cases where either the sensible or latent flux dominates. -Authors