Temperature measurement with a sonic anemometer and its application to heat and moisture fluxes

Abstract

The possibility of measuring heat and moisture fluxes using sonic anemometer data is investigated. Theoretical relations for the temperature variance and heat flux are derived. In the first part of this paper, these relations are verified by experimental data, involving a sonic anemometer, a fast thermocouple and a Lyman-α hygrometer. In the second part we propose two simple procedures to estimate heat flux from sonic anemometer data. The first one requires a rough estimate of the Bowen ratio; for the second one the net radiation is needed. Using the last method, a good estimate of the moisture flux is also obtained.