Evaporation from Nonvegetated Surfaces: Surface Aridity Methods and Passive Microwave Remote Sensing

The use of remotely sensed near-surface soil moisture for the estimation of evaporation is investigated. Two widely used parameterizations of evaporation, the so-called α and β methods, which use near-surface soil moisture to reduce some measure of potential evaporation, are studied. The near-surface soil moisture is provided by a set of L- and S-band microwave radiometers, which were mounted 13 m above the surface. It is shown that soil moisture measured with a passive microwave sensor in combination with the β method yields reliable estimates of evaporation, whereas the α method is not as robust.