MONTHLY EVAPOTRANSPIRATION FROM SATELLITE AND CONVENTIONAL METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

Monthly mean satellite measurements of surface heating rate, surface t emperature, and normalized difference vegetation index were collected for seven locations in Kansas. These were combined with monthly averag e surface observations and used in a surface energy balance model to e stimate monthly mean evapotranspiration at each site. The modeled evap otranspiration and surface energy fluxes are reasonable. The nature of the surface energy balance model is such that it can be solved with s atellite measurements and numerical weather forecast model output alon e. This suggests that large-scale evapotranspiration climatologies can be made without in situ observations.