Annual variation of surface roughness obtained from wind profile measurements

Summary

Profile measurements of wind and temperature have been performed at the Agricultural University of Norway on a routine basis since 1997. 10-min. averages are stored in a database together with other relevant meteorological parameters. The database can be used to determine the seasonal variation of surface aerodynamic roughness, showing the growth of grass between cutting during the growing season, the effect of snowfall and the melting of snow etc. However, careful screening of the data must be conducted before reliable estimates can be made. The main objective of this study is to establish simple practical rules for filtering out unreliable datasets for the evaluation of the surface roughness parameter z₀, and to present its annual variation. The resulting values for the summer period agree well with values found in the literature for homogenous grass covered surfaces. In the transition periods during autumn and spring, and during wintertime in mild weather conditions, the surface is generally non-homogenous with a mixture of snow patches, ponds of melting water and shrubs of withered grass. The results show that the mechanical interaction between a non-homogeneous land surface and the boundary layer flow can be described by one roughness parameter, with a numeric value somewhere in between the ideal values for the different surface characteristics. Another use of the database is to investigate drainage flow and the relationship between drainage flow, prevailing wind direction and the mean vertical velocity of the air. Most micrometeorological studies of the fluxes of heat and water vapour in the surface layer, assume the mean vertical velocity to be zero, focusing on eddy fluxes and thereby excluding any transport in the mean flow. In certain situations, this may lead to serious errors. This work shows that convergence of horizontal flow leads to an upward movement of air, which is enhanced if the prevailing direction of the wind opposes the outflow of the cold drainage winds from the area.