Assessing accurately the surface friction velocity is a key issue for predicting and quantifying aeolian soil erosion. This is usually done either indirectly from the law of the wall (LoW) of the mean wind velocity profile or directly from eddy covariance (EC) of the streamwise and vertical wind velocity fluctuations. However, several recent experiments have reported inconsistency between friction velocities deduced from both methods. Here we reinvestigate the determination of aerodynamic parameters (friction velocity and surface roughness length) over an eroding bare surface and look at the possible reasons for observing differences on these parameters following the method. For that purpose a novel field experiment was performed in South Tunisia under the research program WIND‐O‐V (WIND erOsion in presence of sparse Vegetation). We find no significant difference between friction velocities obtained from both law of the wall and EC approaches when the friction velocity deduced from the EC method was extrapolated to the surface. Surface roughness lengths show a clear increase with wind erosion, with more scattered values when deduced from the EC friction velocity. Our measurements further suggest an average value of the von Karman constant of 0.407 ± 0.002, although individual wind events lead to different average values due probably to the definition of the ground level or to the stability correction. Importantly, the von Karman constant was found independent of the wind intensity and thus of the wind soil erosion intensity. Finally, our results lead to several recommendations for estimating the aerodynamic parameters over bare surface in order to evaluate saltation and dust fluxes.

Measuring accurately size‐resolved dust flux near the surface is crucial for better quantifying dust losses by semiarid soils. Dust fluxes have been usually estimated from the flux‐gradient approach, assuming similarity between dust and momentum turbulent transport. This similarity has, however, never been verified. Here we investigate the similarity between dust (0.3 to 6.0 μm in diameter), momentum, and heat fluxes during aeolian erosion events. These three fluxes were measured by the Eddy Covariance technique during the WIND‐O‐V (WIND erOsion in presence of sparse Vegetation's) 2017 field experiment over an isolated erodible bare plot in South Tunisia. Our measurements confirm the prevalence of ejection and sweep motions in transporting dust as for heat and momentum. However, our measurements also reveal a different partition of the dust flux between ejection and sweep motions and between eddy time scales compared to that of momentum and heat fluxes. This dissimilarity results from the intermittency of the dust emission compared to the more continuous emission (absorption) of heat (momentum) at the surface. Unlike heat emission and momentum absorption, dust release is conditioned by the wind intensity to initiate sandblasting. Consequently, ejection motions do not carry dust as often as heat and low momentum from the surface. This dissimilarity diminishes with increasing wind intensity as saltation patterns, and thus dust emission through sandblasting, become spatially more frequent. Overall, these findings may have implications on the evaluation of dust flux from techniques based on similarity with momentum or heat turbulent transport.

No abstract

Estimating accurately dust emission flux during aeolian erosion events is crucial for quantifying the amount of dust in the atmosphere. The rare existing field experiments quantifying such flux were mainly performed using the flux‐gradient (FG) method. Here, we present the first intercomparison of the size‐resolved dust fluxes estimated by both the FG and the eddy‐covariance (EC) methods during several erosion events. Both methods were applied simultaneously during the WIND‐O‐V (WIND erOsion in presence of sparse Vegetation)'s 2017 field experiment over an isolated erodible bare plot in South Tunisia. Overall, both methods predict similar dust fluxes for particle smaller than about 4 μm. For coarser particles, the EC method predicts a smaller dust flux than the FG method. Factors explaining this difference are discussed such as the different sampling heads used by the dust particle counters of both methods, or the possible weakening of the constant dust flux layer at the location of the upper dust particle counter of the FG method. This intercomparison highlights the difficulties and advantages of each method as well as their complementarity.