Independent Comparisons among Calibration and Output of Energy Balance Components Estimated by the METRIC Procedure

An accurate estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) is an integral part of the hydrological cycle and is increasingly important in local and regional water resource management in central and western United States. Traditionally, estimation of ET included substantial uncertainties, but with the advent of algorithms applied to high resolution (30 m) satellite imagery, ET estimates from bare soil and vegetation can be obtained with greater accuracy. The METRIC image processing model estimates net radiation, soil heat flux and sensible heat flux through a series of steps before estimating ET as the residual from the energy balance. This paper describes a comparison of the METRIC surface energy balance model outputs produced by two different research groups when using the same two 2007 Landsat 5 images as input. One of the research groups is based at the USDA Conservation and Production Research Laboratory in Bushland, Texas where the images and ground-based data were captured, and the other group is from the Kimberly Research Center, University of Idaho where METRIC was developed.