Climate Publications

Nicholson, S. E., J. A. Marengo, J. Kim, A. R. Lare, S. Galle, and Y. H. Kerr, 1997: A daily resolution evapoclimatonomy model applied to surface water balance calculations at the HAPEX-Sahel supersites. J. Hydrol., 188-189, 946-964.

Abstract
This paper describes the results of Lettau's evapoclimatonomy model at daily time scales as applied to the Central East and Southern supersites of the HAPEX-Sahel region in Niger, West Africa. A revised version of the evapoclimatonomy model has been applied to the millet and fallow guiera local fields at both supersites during the Intense Observational Period, IOP (20 August - 12 October, 1992), using daily means of precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, solar radiation, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the HAPEX-Sahel observations, as well as vegetation and soil parameters adequate for the region. Soil moisture, as well as immediate and delayed evapotranspiration adn runoff are predicted. It has been found that the model predicts the soil moisture at the Central Eastern supersite quite well. However, it overestimates soil moisture at the Southern supersite even though its variability is captured by the model. This could be due to nocturnal rains at this supersite, which do not evaporate as quick as if they occur at daytime. Model results also indicate that soil moisture estimations are very sensitive to the NDVI-evaporivity relationship, which is very robust at monthly scales but probably needs some review if applied to daily scale. The fact that the model reaches climatic balance during the IOP and its performance at the eastern site indicate the suitability of the climatonomy model at daily scales to studies of water balance for crops.
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