Energy Balance Modeling in the Snake River Basin

Partitioning of the energy balance components into net radiation, latent, sensible and ground heat fluxes is useful for quantifying water and energy fluxes which in turn is valuable for the water management studies. However, it is difficult to measure or model these components over vast areas continuously. The Snake River basin is a heavily managed system where quantification of the primary sink component of the energy balance, evapotranspiration or latent heat flux, will provide first-hand information on the demand side of the water budget. In this study, we will process and present the seasonality and interannual variability in the weather variables collected from AgriMet stations operated and maintained by Bureau of Reclamation from three stations, namely Malta, Rupert and Twin Falls, located in the Snake River Basin for a two year period, 2006- 07. The variables that will be analyzed include air temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, relative humidity and wind speed for the period between 2004 and 2007. This study will quantify the energy balance fluxes using these weather variables and verify them with a land surface model and available remote-sensing-based energy balance estimates