Quantifying the spatial variability of surface fluxes using data from the 2002 International H2O Project

Using observations made on fair weather days during the 2002 International H2O Project, four methods for quantifying the spatial variability of surface fluxes are investigated. The first two methods utilize applied statistical techniques to describe the spatial variability of the surface fluxes, while the third method is a geostatistical technique rooted in variography.

Typically, the methods yield similar results, with median values of horizontal variability consistent to within 5%. The geostatistical technique, however, provides much more information than the other statistical methods; it not only provides an estimate of the spatial variability, but also provides estimates of the total variability, the non-spatial variability due to measurement error, and the range of spatial correlation among the data points.