The Impact of Vertical Measurement Depth on the Information Content of Soil Moisture for Latent Heat Flux Estimation

AbstractThis study aims to identify the impact of vertical support on the information content of soil moisture (SM) for latent heat flux estimation. This objective is achieved via calculation of the mutual information (MI) content between multiple soil moisture variables (with different vertical supports) and current/future evaporative fraction (EF) using ground-based soil moisture and latent/sensible heat flux observations acquired from the AmeriFlux network within the contiguous United States. Through the intercomparison of MI results from different SM–EF pairs, the general value (for latent heat flux estimation) of superficial soil moisture observations , vertically integrated soil moisture observations , and vertically extrapolated soil moisture time series [soil wetness index (SWI) from a simple low-pass transformation of ] are examined. Results suggest that, contrary to expectations, 2-day averages of and have comparable mutual information with regards to EF. That is, there is no clear evidence that...

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