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Aerodynamic Scaling for Estimating the Mean Height of Dense Canopies

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Abstract

We used an aerodynamic method to objectively determine a representative canopy height, using standard meteorological measurements. The canopy height may change if the tree height is used to represent the actual canopy, but little work to date has focused on creating a standard for determining the representative canopy height. Here we propose the ‘aerodynamic canopy height’ h a as the most effective means of resolving the representative canopy height for all forests. We determined h a by simple linear regression between zero-plane displacement d and roughness length z 0, without the need for stand inventory data. The applicability of h a was confirmed in five different forests, including a forest with a complex canopy structure. Comparison with stand inventory data showed that h a was almost equivalent to the representative height of trees composing the crown surface if the forest had a simple structure, or to the representative height of taller trees composing the upper canopy in forests with a complex canopy structure. The linear relationship between d and z 0 was explained by assuming that the logarithmic wind profile above the canopy and the exponential wind profile within the canopy were continuous and smooth at canopy height. This was supported by observations, which showed that h a was essentially the same as the height defined by the inflection point of the vertical profile of wind speed. The applicability of h a was also verified using data from several previous studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, N19 W8, Kita-Ku, Sapporo, 060-0819, Japan

    Taro Nakai, Akihiro Sumida, Yuji Kodama & Toshihiko Hara

  2. CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-0012, Japan

    Taro Nakai & Takeshi Ohta

  3. Graduate School of Agricultutural Science, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-oiwake-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Kazuho Matsumoto

  4. Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya, 464-8601, Japan

    Ken’ichi Daikoku, Mie Miyahara & Takeshi Ohta

  5. Department of Soil and Water Conservation, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, PO Box 16, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8687, Japan

    Shin’ichi Iida

  6. Data Integration and Analyses Group, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, 237-0061, Japan

    Hotaek Park

  7. Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 41 Lenin ave., Yakutsk, 678891, Russia

    Alexander V. Kononov & Trofim C. Maximov

  8. Institute of Observational Research Center for Global Change, Yokosuka, 237-0061, Japan

    Hironori Yabuki

Authors
  1. Taro Nakai
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  2. Akihiro Sumida
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  3. Kazuho Matsumoto
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  4. Ken’ichi Daikoku
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  5. Shin’ichi Iida
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  6. Hotaek Park
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  7. Mie Miyahara
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  8. Yuji Kodama
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  9. Alexander V. Kononov
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  10. Trofim C. Maximov
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  11. Hironori Yabuki
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  12. Toshihiko Hara
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  13. Takeshi Ohta
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Correspondence to Taro Nakai.

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Nakai, T., Sumida, A., Matsumoto, K. et al. Aerodynamic Scaling for Estimating the Mean Height of Dense Canopies. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 128, 423–443 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-008-9299-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-008-9299-5

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