Monthly Evapotranspiration from Satellite and Conventional Meteorological Observations

Abstract

Monthly mean satellite measurements of surface heating rate, surface temperature, and normalized difference vegetation index were collected for seven locations in Kansas. These were combined with monthly average surface observations and used in a surface energy balance model to estimate monthly mean evapotranspiration at each site. The modeled evapotranspiration and surface energy fluxes are reasonable. The nature of the surface energy balance model is such that it can be solved with satellite measurements and numerical weather forecast model output alone. This suggests that large-scale evapotranspiration climatologies can be made without in situ observations.