Test of a sensible heat flux : Radiometric surface temperature relationship for HAPEX-Sahel

The estimation of the sensible heatflux from thermal infrared temperature requires anestimate of the excess resistance to be added to theaerodynamic resistance to the transfer of heat fromthe surface. This excess resistance can be expressedin terms of kB-1. An earlier studysuggested that the sensible heat flux over semi-aridregions could be derived from satellite thermalinfrared temperature using a value of kB-1= 7. Values of kB-1 were derived frommeasurements of sensible heat flux, radiometricsurface temperature, air temperature and wind speedtaken over millet, savannah and open forest sitesduring HAPEX-Sahel. These were comparable to valuesderived over similar sites during a previous study. Sensible and latent heat fluxes were estimated usingno excess resistance, kB-1 = 7 andkB-1 set to the values derived from theHAPEX-Sahel data set. There was an improvement on theestimated fluxes when an excess resistance wasincorporated. However, there was no apparentdifference between the errors in the estimated fluxeswith kB-1 set to either the derived orfixed values. This provides additional support forthe use of kB-1 = 7 in the derivation ofsurface fluxes from satellite data for sparsecanopies.