Regionalization of surface fluxes over heterogeneous landscape of the Tibetan Plateau by using satellite remote sensing data

Abstract

In this study, a parameterization method based on NOAA-14/AVHRR data and field observations is described and tested for deriving the regional land surface variables, vegetation variables and land surface heat fluxes over a heterogeneous landscape. As a case study, the method was applied to the Tibetan Plateau area. The regional distribution maps of surface reflectance, MSAVI, vegetation coverage, surface temperature, net radiation, soil heat flux, sensible heat flux and latent heat flux were determined over the Tibetan Plateau area. The derived results were validated by using the "ground truth". The results show that the more reasonable regional distributions and their seasonal variations of land surface variables (surface reflectance, surface temperature), vegetation variables (MSAVI and vegetation coverage), net radiation, soil heat flux and sensible heat flux can be obtained by using the method proposed in this study. However, the approach of deriving regional latent heat flux, and their seasonal variation as the residual of the energy budget, may not be a good method due to the unbalance of energy and the strong advection over the study area. Further improvement of the method was also discussed.