Surface heterogeneity and the spatial variation of fluxes

An integral scale of surface heterogeneity is defined in terms of the structure function of surface properties (surface temperature and albedo) and related to flux measurements taken during the NOPEX experiment. The spatial variation of the sensible and latent heat fluxes is shown to be related to this structure function. Although the surface heterogeneity clearly influences the spatial variation of the fluxes, the variance of the fluxes scales under mixed layer scaling and not the heterogeneity of the underlying surface. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.