Retrieving air humidity, global solar radiation, and reference evapotranspiration from daily temperatures: development and validation of new methods for Mexico. Part III: reference evapotranspiration

• Published in: Theoretical and applied climatology Vol. 133; no. 3-4; pp. 787 - 797
• Main Authors: Lobit, P., Gómez Tagle, A., Bautista, F., Lhomme, J. P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01.08.2018; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate models; Climate science; Climatology; Daily; Daily temperature range; Daily temperatures; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Empirical analysis; Evapotranspiration; Humidity; Mathematical models; Mean temperatures; Methods; Minimum temperatures; Model testing; Original Paper; Pressure; Radiation (Physics); Sensitivity analysis; Short wave radiation; Solar radiation; Temperature; Temperature data; Temperature effects; Territory; Vapor pressure; Vapors; Vapour pressure; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Weather; Weather stations; Wind speed; Mexico
• ISSN: 0177-798X; 1434-4483
• DOI: 10.1007/s00704-017-2213-7

We evaluated two methods to estimate evapotranspiration ( ETo ) from minimal weather records (daily maximum and minimum temperatures) in Mexico: a modified reduced set FAO-Penman-Monteith method (Allen et al. 1998 , Rome, Italy) and the Hargreaves and Samani (Appl Eng Agric 1(2): 96–99, 1985 ) method. In the reduced set method, the FAO-Penman-Monteith equation was applied with vapor pressure and radiation estimated from temperature data using two new models (see first and second articles in this series): mean temperature as the average of maximum and minimum temperature corrected for a constant bias and constant wind speed. The Hargreaves-Samani method combines two empirical relationships: one between diurnal temperature range Δ T and shortwave radiation Rs , and another one between average temperature and the ratio ETo/Rs : both relationships were evaluated and calibrated for Mexico. After performing a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the impact of different approximations on the estimation of Rs and ETo , several model combinations were tested to predict ETo from daily maximum and minimum temperature alone. The quality of fit of these models was evaluated on 786 weather stations covering most of the territory of Mexico. The best method was found to be a combination of the FAO-Penman-Monteith reduced set equation with the new radiation estimation and vapor pressure model. As an alternative, a recalibration of the Hargreaves-Samani equation is proposed.