Physical controls on half‐hourly, daily, and monthly turbulent flux and energy budget over a high‐altitude small lake on the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract Precise measurements of evaporation and understanding of the physical controls on turbulent heat flux over lakes have fundamental significance for catchment‐scale water balance analysis and local‐scale climate modeling. The observation and simulation of lake‐air turbulent flux processes have been widely carried out, but studies that examine high‐altitude lakes on the Tibetan Plateau are still rare, especially for small lakes. An eddy covariance (EC) system, together with a four‐component radiation sensor and instruments for measuring water temperature profiles, was set up in a small lake within the Nam Co basin in April 2012 for long‐term evaporation and energy budget observations. With the valuable measurements collected during the ice‐free periods in 2012 and 2013, the main conclusions are summarized as follows: First, a bulk aerodynamic transfer model (B model), with parameters optimized for the specific wave pattern in the small lake, could provide reliable and consistent results with EC measurements, and B model simulations are suitable for data interpolation due to inadequate footprint or malfunction of the EC instrument. Second, the total evaporation in this small lake (812 mm) is approximately 200 mm larger than that from adjacent Nam Co (approximately 627 mm) during their ice‐free seasons. Third, wind speed shows significance at temporal scales of half hourly, whereas water vapor and temperature gradients have higher correlations over temporal scales of daily and monthly in lake‐air turbulent heat exchange. Finally, energy stored during April to June is mainly released during September to November, suggesting an energy balance closure value of 0.97.