DRI EVAPORATION WORKSHOP
Location: Room 1E79, Agriculture Building (click here for map), University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SKDate and Time: 17 May 2007, 0800h - 1600h
Accommodations: Park Town Hotel
Rationale:
Drought is ubiquitous and severe in the Prairie region of Canada and a
common occurrence in other regions of the country. Much of the
connection between meteorological drought and agricultural and
hydrological drought lies in the process of evaporation (defined as
water vapour flux from soil, water, vegetation, snow and including
stomatal release due to transpiration). Evaporation is notoriously
poorly defined and difficult to calculate and measure as it occurs at
the interface of the atmospheric, hydrological, soil and plant systems
and has a high spatial variability. Evaporation estimates have
considerable variance due to uncertainty and differences in calculation
scheme, definition of the process, parameter estimation, tracking of
state variables, available forcing meteorology, advection and
atmospheric feedbacks. Uncertainty in estimating evaporation as a
region such as the Canadian Prairies enters and leaves drought is
particularly large.
Goals, to:
i) review the current biophysical understanding of the process of
evaporation from various surfaces as it relates to drought conditions
(including onset and cessation of drought);
ii) evaluate numerical methods for calculating actual evaporation from
unsaturated and saturated, frozen and unfrozen surfaces under a variety
of atmospheric conditions with particular attention to the purpose,
scale, performance and parameter needs of various methods;
iii) examine alternative means of estimating evaporation parameters and
rates using remote sensing, data assimilation, novel model strategies,
improved theory and biophysical methods;
iv) recommend a course for DRI and allied evaporation research that
will reduce uncertainty and improve accuracy in evaporation estimates
for atmospheric and hydrological models.
Format:
i) Scientific talks/posters and subsequent discussion sessions relating
to each of the four Goals above;
ii) Focussed discussion session on Goal iv): recommending a course for
DRI and allied evaporation research that will reduce uncertainty and
improve accuracy in evaporation estimates for atmospheric and
hydrological models.