Representativeness of Eddy-Covariance flux footprints for areas surrounding AmeriFlux sites

作者：Housen Chu, Xiangzhong Luo, Zutao Ouyang, Stephen Chan, Sigrid Dengel, Sébastien Biraud, Margaret Torn, Stefan Metzger, Jitendra Kumar, M. Altaf Arain, T. J. Arkebauer, Dennis Baldocchi, Carl J. Bernacchi, D. P. Billesbach, T. Andrew Black, Peter D. Blanken, Gil Bohrer, Rosvel Bracho, S. M. Brown, N. A. Brunsell, Jiquan Chen, Xingyuan Chen, Kenneth L. Clark, Ankur R. Desai, Tomer Duman, David Durden, Silvano Fares, Inke Forbrich, John A. Gamon, Christopher M. Gough, Timothy J. Griffis, Manuel Helbig, David Y. Hollinger, Elyn Humphreys, Hiroki Ikawa, Hiroki Iwata, Yang Ju, John F. Knowles, Sara Knox, Hideki Kobayashi, Thomas E. Kolb, B. E. Law, Xuhui Lee, M. E. Litvak, Heping Liu, J. William Munger, Asko Noormets, Kim Novick, Steven F. Oberbauer, Walter C. Oechel, Patty Oikawa, S. A. Papuga, Elise Pendall, Prajaya Prajapati, John H. Prueger, William L. Quinton, Andrew D. Richardson, Eric S. Russell, Russell L. Scott, Gregory Starr, Ralf M. Staebler, Paul C. Stoy, Ellen Stuart‐Haëntjens, Oliver Sonnentag, Ryan C. Sullivan, Andy Suyker, Masahito Ueyama, Rodrigo Vargas, Jeffrey D. Wood, Donatella Zona · 发表于：Agricultural and Forest Meteorology · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108350 · 被引用次数：513 · 研究领域：Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Remote Sensing in Agriculture

Large datasets of greenhouse gas and energy surface-atmosphere fluxes measured with the eddy-covariance technique (e.g., FLUXNET2015, AmeriFlux BASE) are widely used to benchmark models and remote-sensing products. This study addresses one of the major challenges facing model-data integration: To what spatial extent do flux measurements taken at individual eddy-covariance sites reflect model- or satellite-based grid cells? We evaluate flux footprints—the temporally dynamic source areas that contribute to measured fluxes—and the representativeness of these footprints for target areas (e.g., within 250–3000 m radii around flux towers) that are often used in flux-data synthesis and modeling studies. We examine the land-cover composition and vegetation characteristics, represented here by the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), in the flux footprints and target areas across 214 AmeriFlux sites, and evaluate potential biases as a consequence of the footprint-to-target-area mismatch. Monthly 80% footprint climatologies vary across sites and through time ranging four orders of magnitude from 103 to 107 m2 due to the measurement heights, underlying vegetation- and ground-surface characteristics, wind directions, and turbulent state of the atmosphere. Few eddy-covariance sites are located in a truly homogeneous landscape. Thus, the common model-data integration approaches that use a fixed-extent target area across sites introduce biases on the order of 4%–20% for EVI and 6%–20% for the d...