Using Large-Aperture Scintillometer to Estimate Lake-Water Evaporation and Heat Fluxes in the Badain Jaran Desert, China

Abstract

Accurate estimation of evaporation (E0) over open water bodies in arid regions (e.g., lakes in the desert) is of great importance for local water resource management. Due to the ability to accurately determine sensible (H) and latent (LE) heat fluxes over scales of hundreds to thousands of meters, scintillometers are more and more appreciated. In this study, a scintillometer was installed on both sides of the shore over the Sumu Barun Jaran Lake in the Badain Jaran Desert and was applied to estimate the sensible and latent heat fluxes and evaporation to be compared with the data of an evaporation pan and an aerodynamic model. Based on the field data, we further analyzed the seasonal differences in the flux evaluation using water temperature at different depths at half-hour and daily time scales, respectively. The results showed that in cold seasons, values of H were barely affected by the changes of shallow water temperature, whereas in hot seasons, the values were changed by 20%–30% at the half-hour time scale and 6.2%–18.3% at the daily time scale. In different seasons, shallow water temperature at different depths caused changes in the range of 0%–20% of LE (E0). This study contributes to a better understanding of uncertainties in measurements by large-aperture scintillometers in open-water environments.