REGIONAL-SCALE EVAPORATION AND THE ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY-LAYER

Evaporation into the atmosphere is fundamental to the fields of hydrol ogy, meteorology, and climatology. With evolving interest in regional and global hydrologic processes there is an increasing recognition of the importance of the study of evaporation and land surface water bala nces for length scales of the order of 10 km. To obtain regional scale fluxes of water vapor, heat, and momentum, it is important to underst and transport in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), which is define d to be that part of the atmosphere directly influenced by the land su rface. In this review we briefly summarize some current models of evap oration and the ABL and discuss new experimental and computational opp ortunities that may aid our understanding of evaporation at these larg er scales. In particular, consideration is given to remote sensing of the atmosphere, computational fluid dynamics and the role numerical mo dels can play in understanding land-atmosphere interaction. These powe rful modeling and measurement tools are allowing us to visualize and s tudy spatial and temporal scales previously untouched, thereby increas ing the opportunities to improve our understanding of land-atmosphere interaction.