Footprint modelling via LES for the LITFASS-2003 measuring campaign
Responsible: Farah Kanani
Project type: Diplomarbeit (equivalent to master thesis)
Duration: 19/10/2009-18/10/2010

In heterogeneous terrain, the measurement of turbulent fluxes involves several difficulties. The flux that is measured at a certain sensor point is not produced directly beneath the sensor, but is rather produced in areas upwind of the sensor. Therefor, the areas of influence on a flux measurement have to be determined to diagnose the representativeness of a measurement. The area of influence is called "footprint" of a measurement.

In this thesis footprints shall be determined for the measuring sites of the LITFASS-2003 measuring campaign using the parallelized LES-model PALM. These footprint results, computed by a numerical footprint model, shall then further be used to validate the results of an analytical footprint model which was used prior to LITFASS-2003 to estimate which measuring site is most representative for the respective vegetation in the vicinity of the sensor.