Improvements to models and methods for evaluating the land-surface energy balance and ‘effective’ roughness using radiosonde reports and satellite-measured ‘skin’ temperature data

Abstract In this paper, we expand on a technique developed previously which uses radiosonde measurements of the daytime change of the height of the planetary boundary layer in combination with geostationary satellite measurements of surface skin temperature to evaluate the energy balance and an ‘effective’ roughness of the land surface. The improvements described here are primarily designed to increase the amount of usable data produced by the system by expanding the range of circumstances under which measurements can be taken. Previously, to make surface evaluations it was necessary that the local time-change of the surface temperature and PBL structure be dominated by the diurnal surface flux exchanges. In this paper, we test several techniques to compensate for the effects of horizontal and vertical temperature advection and vertical motions above the planetary boundary layer. The improved techniques and the sensitivities of the determination of the surface energy balance and effective roughness to advection and vertical motions are investigated in a case study including 3 days of data for locations in the Midwest and Great Plains areas of continental USA in the summers of 1987 and 1988.