Information theory approaches to scaling of land-atmosphere interactions (Invited)

Mass and energy exchange processes between the land surface and atmosphere encompass a range of scales from the stomata to the globe. Understanding the transfer of energy and mass requires understanding the multi-scale interactions between a multitude of spatial and temporal scales. A wavelet based information theory approach can provide empirical evidence of the magnitude of these interactions as well as quantify the role of heterogeneity as a function of scale. Recent applications of the Shannon entropy, mutual information content, relative and transfer entropies as a function of scale will be discussed with specific focus on multi-scale mass and energy exchange between the surface and the atmosphere. Applications highlight the robustness of the technique as applied to data and model output including regional climate models, land surface models, daily precipitation records, eddy covariance data and remotely sensed surface fields. The proposed methodology shows considerable promise in quantifying the scaling dynamics across the wide range of spatial and temporal scales necessary to characterize land-atmosphere interactions.