Speaker: Dr. Sayed Bateni
Abstract: To estimate evapotranspiration and gross primary productivity, land surface temperature (LST) and leaf area index (LAI) measurements were assimilated into a coupled surface energy balance-vegetation dynamic model (SEB-VDM) within a variational data assimilation (VDA) system. The SEB and VDM are coupled by relating photosynthesis in the VDM to transpiration in the SEB equation. The unknown parameters of the VDA system are (1) bulk heat transfer coefficient (CHN), (2) soil evaporative fraction (EFs), (3) canopy evaporative fraction (EFc), and (4) specific leaf area (cg). The performance of the VDA approach was tested in the Heihe River Basin (HRB) extensively, which is located in northwest China. The results show that the developed VDA framework performs well in different environmental conditions, and the estimated evapotranspiration and gross primary productivity agree well with the corresponding measurements from the eddy covariance stations.