Estimating Turbulent Heat Fluxes With a Weak-Constraint Data Assimilation Scheme: A Case Study (HiWATER-MUSOEXE)

A weak-constraint variational data assimilation (WC-VDA) scheme was developed to estimate turbulent heat fluxes by assimilating sequences of land surface temperature measurements. In contrast to the commonly used strong-constraint VDA system, the WC-VDA approach accounts for the effects of structural and model errors and generates better results. This is achieved by adding a model error term (
$\omega$
) to the surface energy balance equation. The WC-VDA model was tested at two sites with very distinct hydrological and vegetated conditions: the Daman site (a wet site located in an oasis area and covered by seeded corn) and the Huazhaizi site (a dry site located in a desert area and covered by sparse grass). The two sites represent typical desert–oasis landscapes in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin, northwestern China. The results proved that the WC-VDA method performed well over very dry and wet conditions, and the estimated sensible and latent heat fluxes agree well with eddy covariance measurements.