Surface Heterogeneity Measure and Its Application in Energy Imbalance Problem

The Earth's surface continuously interacts with the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) through turbulent fluxes.  These fluxes are responsible for the transfer of energy, momentum, and matter. In consequence, land-atmosphere feedback is controlled by the surface structure.  Assuming surface homogeneity in scientific practices causes problems like inaccuracy in atmospheric models predictions and underestimations in eddy-covariance (EC) measurements.  One challenge of accounting for surface heterogeneity in scientific practices is the lack of a practical measure of heterogeneity length scales.  We propose here a lacunarity based heterogeneity scale that is validated using experimental forest models.  For mitigating the energy imbalance problem in EC measurements, it was found that the flux underestimation can be parameterized as a function of atmospheric stability and surface heterogeneity.  We investigate the applicability of the heterogeneity scale to this parameterization for the underestimations in CO2 fluxes.