Abstract
This paper describes some of the results that were obtained in an experimental study of an inversion capping a convective boundary layer, during which a balloon-borne probe was flown through the actual interface at the same time as it was scanned by a high power 10-cm Doppler radar. The initial analysis has revealed several interesting features including the possible presence of small-scale Kelvin-Helmholtz billows at the crest of the ‘hummocks’ of the inversion and the absence of an inertial subrange. A model is proposed for the transfer of sensible heatdownwards across the inversion. This is hypothesised as a two-stage process — sporadic thickening by the entrainment of air from above and below due to the action of the breaking billows, and a continual erosion of the lower surface by convective activity.
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Readings, C.J., Golton, E. & Browning, K.A. Fine-scale structure and mixing within an inversion. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 4, 275–287 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02265238
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02265238