Evapotranspiration and surface heat fluxes over Belgium: outcome and perspectives

The assessment of the evapotranspiration and of the related surface turbulent heat fluxes is of major importance for atmospheric modelling and for practical applications in the field of agronomy and environment management. A method of assessment of these variables has been elaborated. As geostationary satellites can provide spatial information with a fairly short time step, the method combines ground meteorological data and Meteosat data. Hourly archives of evapotranspiration and surface turbulent fluxes covering the Belgian territory are now available for more than four years. Monthly means for the different years may be compared to characterise the climate variability. An outcome of the procedure is drawn and some statistics on the obtained results are presented. New perspectives offered by the next generation of meteorological satellites are outlined. In the following years, it is intended to further develop the method in the framework of the Land-SAF set up by EUMETSAT.