A decade of changing surface energy balance components over a large water region

This study has investigated the physical processes of energy exchange between the water surface and atmosphere over Lake Huron. The four components of surface energy balance, including net radiation, latent heat, sensible heat, and heat storage, were estimated using the eleven years (2002-2012) daily MODIS data together with in-situ measurements. Good agreement was found between the seasonal turbulent heat fluxes calculated from satellite data and those from the direct measurements (eddy covariance method) with correlation coefficients of 0.94 and 0.95 for sensible heat and latent heat, respectively. There were temporal, spatial heterogeneities, and strong seasonal pattern for all of the four components, which were very high in summer and low in winter for net radiation and heat storage. In contrast, latent heat and sensible heat were very high in the winter and very low in the summer. Trend analysis revealed long term changes for each of the energy balance components, particularly the increase in latent heat which was equivalent to evaporation rate of 0.017 mm m^-2 per year, indicating that lake evaporation increased by 0.19 mm m^-2 over the eleven years observation period. This was possibly a result of a smaller amount of over lake ice cover and an increase in surface water temperature of Lake Huron.