Abstract
This paper reports analysis of eddy-covariance data collected during the WFIP2 field campaign in the complex-terrain of the US Pacific Northwest. A 31-day period representative of the region’s dry season was used to address the following questions: (1) To what extent does the Constant-Flux Layer (CFL) assumption hold? (2) What is the spatial variability of turbulent and momentum fluxes over km scales? and (3) How skilful are the surface-layer parameterizations of mesoscale models? These questions are directly relevant to subgrid parameterization studies of mesoscale models. Results show that the efficacy of the CFL concept and the spatial variability of turbulent and momentum fluxes are dependent on: (i) the turbulent parameter being analysed, (ii) the measurement’s location, (iii) the atmospheric stability regime (determined by the flow and vertical stratification), and (iv) the magnitude of the flux. Finally, the skill of the physics formulation of an often-used surface-layer parameterization scheme available in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was also evaluated. Meteorological conditions associated with the highest and the lowest errors were identified. A metric to quantify (time-dependent) flow heterogeneity is proposed, which appears to be a good candidate to predict the skill of idealized surface-layer parameterization schemes in complex terrain.
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Data availability
The datasets analysed during the current study are available in the WFP2 repository of the Atmosphere to Electrons Data archive of the U.S. Department of Energy and is publicly available to download at https://a2e.energy.gov/projects/wfip2
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Acknowledgements
University of Notre Dame contribution to WFIP2 project was funded by the grant DOE-WFIFP2-SUB-001. The work appearing in this paper was supported by the US National Science Foundation Award AGS-1921554. The authors would like to thank the reviewers and editor for their valuable feedback during the peer-review process, which helped improve the overall quality of the manuscript. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Paolo Gianni from the University of Notre Dame, who provided thoughtful and valuable feedback that contributed to this manuscript.
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Appendix
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See Figs
Histogram of the Obukhov length scale using the combined measurements from all tower sites at z = 10 m agl. The two vertical lines show the lower and upper thresholds used to identify Near-Neutral (NN) cases (\({L}_{TR}=200)\). This distribution corresponds to the wind sector (240, 290)
16,
Wind speed and wind direction profiles from the combined measurements from the tower and the Sodar at site T1 that were used to estimate the roughness length value. This profile was aggregated for multiple periods with Near-Neutral (NN) conditions and the measured standard deviation is indicated by the black horizontal lines
17,
Aggregated a wind speed and wind direction profiles measured at site T2 for NN conditions and used to calculate the roughness length at site T2, and b Same as in a but for site T6. The standard deviation is indicated by the black horizontal line
18,
An example of the methodology proposed by Panofsky (1962) to determine roughness length. The methodology was applied to the velocity profiles measured at site T1 (as shown in Fig. A. 2)
19,
Color maps of a 1 h Error (%) between observed and simulated friction velocities; and b 1 h observed friction velocity for the period 27 August 2016 to 26 September 2016. The abscissa indicates the local time whereas the ordinate is the date
20,
Topography of instrumented region (grayscale) and tower sites with annotated terrain elevation. The percentual differences between local and spatially averaged temperature fluxes at z = 10 m are shown for all sites. a Corresponds to UN periods between 12:00 and 15:00 PST for the observational period. b Same as before, but for Stable periods between 00:00 and 03:00 PST
21,
Topography of instrumented region (grayscale) and tower sites with annotated terrain elevation. Local values of friction velocity (\({u}^{*}\)) at z = 10 m are shown for all sites. a Corresponds to UN periods between 12:00 and 15:00 PST for the observational period. b Same as before, but for Stable periods between 00:00 and 03:00 PST
Topography of instrumented region (grayscale) and tower sites with annotated terrain elevation. Local values of temperature fluxes (\( \overline{{wT}} \)) at z = 10 m are shown for all sites. a Corresponds to UN periods between 12:00 and 15:00 PST for the observational period. b Same as before, but for Stable periods between 00:00 and 03:00 PST
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Otarola Bustos, S.F., Fernando, H.J.S., Wilczak, J.M. et al. Subgrid Variability of Atmospheric Surface-Layer Parameters in Complex Terrain. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 187, 229–265 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-023-00797-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-023-00797-y