E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano

In the endorheic basins of the Altiplano, water is crucial for sustaining unique ecological habitats. Here, the wetlands act as highly localized evaporative environments, and little is known about the processes that control evaporation. Understanding evaporation in the Altiplano is challenging becau...

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Main Authors: Francisco Suárez, Felipe Lobos, Alberto de la Fuente, Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano, Ana Prieto, Carolina Meruane, Oscar Hartogensis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-03-01
Series:Water
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/3/745
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spelling doaj-c1a62af2b4c040ef8a56dd56736429ae2020-11-25T02:08:43ZengMDPI AGWater2073-44412020-03-0112374510.3390/w12030745w12030745E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid AltiplanoFrancisco Suárez0Felipe Lobos1Alberto de la Fuente2Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano3Ana Prieto4Carolina Meruane5Oscar Hartogensis6Departamento de Ingeniería Hidráulica y Ambiental, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, ChileDepartamento de Ingeniería Hidráulica y Ambiental, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, ChileDepartamento de Ingeniería Civil, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8370448, ChileMeteorology and Air Quality Section, Wageningen University and Research, 6700 AA Wageningen, The NetherlandsDepartamento de Ingeniería Civil, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8370448, ChileDepartamento de Ingeniería Civil, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8370448, ChileMeteorology and Air Quality Section, Wageningen University and Research, 6700 AA Wageningen, The NetherlandsIn the endorheic basins of the Altiplano, water is crucial for sustaining unique ecological habitats. Here, the wetlands act as highly localized evaporative environments, and little is known about the processes that control evaporation. Understanding evaporation in the Altiplano is challenging because these environments are immersed in a complex topography surrounded by desert and are affected by atmospheric circulations at various spatial scales. Also, these environments may be subject to evaporation enhancement events as the result of dry air advection. To better characterize evaporation processes in the Altiplano, the novel Evaporation caused by Dry Air Transport over the Atacama Desert (E-DATA) field campaign was designed and tested at the Salar del Huasco, Chile. The E-DATA combines surface and airborne measurements to understand the evaporation dynamics over heterogeneous surfaces, with the main emphasis on the open water evaporation. The weather and research forecasting model was used for planning the instruments installation strategy to understand how large-scale air flow affects evaporation. Instrumentation deployed included: meteorological stations, eddy covariance systems, scintillometers, radiosondes and an unmanned aerial vehicle, and fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing. Additional water quality and CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes measurements were carried out to identify the link between meteorological conditions and the biochemical dynamics of Salar del Huasco. Our first results show that, in the study site, evaporation is driven by processes occurring at multiple spatial and temporal scales and that, even in the case of available water and energy, evaporation is triggered by mechanical turbulence induced by wind.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/3/745salar del huascosurface energy balanceevaporationadvectionmultiscale processeseddy covariancescintillometersradiosoundingdistributed temperature sensing
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Francisco Suárez
Felipe Lobos
Alberto de la Fuente
Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano
Ana Prieto
Carolina Meruane
Oscar Hartogensis
spellingShingle Francisco Suárez
Felipe Lobos
Alberto de la Fuente
Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano
Ana Prieto
Carolina Meruane
Oscar Hartogensis
E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano
Water
salar del huasco
surface energy balance
evaporation
advection
multiscale processes
eddy covariance
scintillometers
radiosounding
distributed temperature sensing
author_facet Francisco Suárez
Felipe Lobos
Alberto de la Fuente
Jordi Vilà-Guerau de Arellano
Ana Prieto
Carolina Meruane
Oscar Hartogensis
author_sort Francisco Suárez
title E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano
title_short E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano
title_full E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano
title_fullStr E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano
title_full_unstemmed E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano
title_sort e-data: a comprehensive field campaign to investigate evaporation enhanced by advection in the hyper-arid altiplano
publisher MDPI AG
series Water
issn 2073-4441
publishDate 2020-03-01
description In the endorheic basins of the Altiplano, water is crucial for sustaining unique ecological habitats. Here, the wetlands act as highly localized evaporative environments, and little is known about the processes that control evaporation. Understanding evaporation in the Altiplano is challenging because these environments are immersed in a complex topography surrounded by desert and are affected by atmospheric circulations at various spatial scales. Also, these environments may be subject to evaporation enhancement events as the result of dry air advection. To better characterize evaporation processes in the Altiplano, the novel Evaporation caused by Dry Air Transport over the Atacama Desert (E-DATA) field campaign was designed and tested at the Salar del Huasco, Chile. The E-DATA combines surface and airborne measurements to understand the evaporation dynamics over heterogeneous surfaces, with the main emphasis on the open water evaporation. The weather and research forecasting model was used for planning the instruments installation strategy to understand how large-scale air flow affects evaporation. Instrumentation deployed included: meteorological stations, eddy covariance systems, scintillometers, radiosondes and an unmanned aerial vehicle, and fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing. Additional water quality and CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes measurements were carried out to identify the link between meteorological conditions and the biochemical dynamics of Salar del Huasco. Our first results show that, in the study site, evaporation is driven by processes occurring at multiple spatial and temporal scales and that, even in the case of available water and energy, evaporation is triggered by mechanical turbulence induced by wind.
topic salar del huasco
surface energy balance
evaporation
advection
multiscale processes
eddy covariance
scintillometers
radiosounding
distributed temperature sensing
url https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/3/745
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