ABSTRACT
The net solar radiation over the land surface is partitioned into sensible, latent, and ground heat fluxes. The latent heat is absorbed by a body, such as plants, or a thermodynamic system to convert liquid/solid water into water vapor. The total evaporated water is called evapotranspiration (ET) as a sum of soil evaporation, vegetation evaporation, and vegetation transpiration; the latter is a process that couples with carbon uptake through photosynthesis. Therefore, land surface energy, water, and carbon fluxes are interconnected through the coupled land surface processes, in particular the ET process. Accurate measurements and estimates of these energy-water fluxes, that is, the sensible, latent, and ground heat fluxes, are critical to quantify the surface energy and water budgets (Diak et al., 2004), predict short-term weather and longer-term climate (Pielke et al., 1998; Schumacher et al., 2004), diagnose climate change (IPCC, 2013), and evaluate and improve physics of climate models (Bony et al., 2006).
