An improved aerodynamic evaporation technique for large lakes with application to the International Field Year for the Great Lakes

Abstract

An improved bulk transfer technique was developed for large‐lake evaporation based upon recent boundary layer research near the air‐water interface. A variable bulk transfer coefficient, dependent upon atmospheric stability, is given as a function of the nondimensional wind speed gradient, the potential temperature gradient, and the Monin‐Obukhov length. The technique, which requires the same data as the simplified mass transfer equation, can be readily applied to large lakes throughout the world. This technique has been applied to the Lake Ontario data set collected during the International Field Year for the Great Lakes. The inclusion of stability increases calculated evaporation during the unstable high‐evaporation months and decreases calculated condensation during the stable late spring months to more realistic levels. Comparisons between the Lake Hefner mass transfer equation and the technique recommended here indicate that the mass transfer equation may overestimate Lake Ontario evaporation by approximately 20%.

Comparison of precise water depth measurements on agricultural storages with open water evaporation estimates

“…Computational Fluid Mechanics (CFD) based work is required to theoretically predict dam factor according to dam geometry, heat storage and boundary layer physics (Lakshman, 1972, Quinn 1979, Webster and Sherman, 1995, Condie and Webster, 1997. Experimental validation of theory is also required via measurements of advection driven temporal and spatial variability of open water evaporation using eddy correlation (Sene et al 1991) or optical techniques (Edwards et al 2000).…”

Evaporation and energy budget in Lake Vegoritis, Greece

“…(1) water budget (U.S. G.S., 1954;Hunt, 1959;Morton, 1967;Myrup et al, 1979), (2) measurement, like evaporation pans (Kohler, 1954;Webb, 1966;Vardavas, 1987;Fu et al, 2004) and eddy correlation technique (Ikebuchi et al, 1988;Sene et al, 1991;Stannard and Rosenberry, 1991;Assouline and Mahrer, 1993), (3) energy budget (U.S. G.S., 1954, 1958Bolsenga, 1975;Sturrock et al, 1992;Sacks et al, 1994;dos Reis and Dias, 1998;Winter et al, 2003;Lenters et al, 2005), (4) mass transfer (U.S. G.S., 1954, 1958Sweers, 1976;Quinn, 1979;Yu and Knapp, 1985;Hostetler and Bartlein, 1990;Stauffer, 1991;Singh and Xu, 1997) and (5) combination methods (Penman, 1948;Priestley and Taylor, 1972;De Bruin, 1978;Vardavas and Fountoulakis, 1996;Finch, 2001).…”

Evaporation from Lake Superior: 2

“…The earliest attempts to estimate evaporation applied mass transfer approaches using coefficients derived over other lakes (Richards and Irbe, 1969;Snyder, 1960). Quinn (1979) developed a mass transfer technique for Lake Ontario that Derecki (1980Derecki ( , 1981 applied to Lake Superior using shore-based data with adjustments that account for stability and fetch to represent average lake conditions. Published rates of Lake Superior evaporation (Bennett, 1978;Croley, 2005;Croley and Hunter, 1994;Derecki, 1981;Lofgren and Zhu, 2000;Quinn and Kelley, 1983;Schertzer, 1978) suggest annual evaporation averages~500 mm.…”