Measurements carried out in Northern Finland on radiation and turbulent flu
xes over a sparse, sub-arctic boreal forest with snow covered ground were a
nalysed. The measurements represent late winter conditions characterised by
low solar elevation angles. During the experiment (12-24 March 1997) day a
nd night were about equally long. At low solar elevation angles the forest
shades most of the snow surface. Therefore an important part of the radiati
on never reaches the snow surface but is absorbed by the forest. The sensib
le heat flux above the forest was fairly large, reaching more than 100 W m(
-2). The measurements of sensible heat flux within and above the forest rev
ealed that the sensible heat flux from the snow surface is negligible and t
he sensible heat flux above the forest stems from warming of the trees. A s
imple model for the surface energy balance of a sparse forest is presented.
The model treats the diffuse and direct shortwave (solar) radiation separa
tely. It introduces a factor that accounts for the shading of the ground at
low solar elevation angles, and a parameter that deals with the partial tr
ansparency of the forest.
Input to the model are the direct and diffuse incoming shortwave radiation.
Measurements of the global radiation (direct plus diffuse incoming shortwa
ve radiation) above the forest revealed a considerable attenuation of the g
lobal radiation at low solar elevation. A relation for the atmospheric turb
idity as function of the solar elevation angle is suggested. The global rad
iation was simulated for a three month period. For conditions with a cloud
cover of less than 7 oktas good agreement between model predictions and mea
surements were found. For cloud cover 7 and 8 oktas a considerable spread c
an be observed. To apply the proposed energy balance model, the global radi
ation must be separated into its diffuse and direct components. We propose
a simple empirical relationship between diffuse shortwave and global radiat
ion as function of cloud cover.