Abstract
We report results of preliminary high-resolution in situ atmospheric measurements through the boundary layer and lower atmosphere over the southern coast of Perú. This region of the coast is of particular interest because it lies adjacent to the northern coastal edge of the sub-tropical south-eastern Pacific, a very large area of ocean having a persistent stratus deck located just below the marine boundary layer (MBL) inversion. Typically, the boundary layer in this region during winter is topped by a quasi-permanent, well-defined, and very large temperature gradient. The data presented herein examine fine-scale details of the coastal atmosphere at a point where the edge of this MBL extends over the coastline as a result of persistent onshore flow. Atmospheric data were gathered using a recently-developed in-house constructed, GPS-controlled, micro-autonomous-vehicle aircraft (the DataHawk). Measured quantities include high-resolution profiles of temperature, wind, and turbulence structure from the surface to 1,300 m.
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Acknowledgments
We are pleased to acknowledge significant assistance during the campaign portion of this effort by personnel of the Jicamarca Radio Observatory (JRO) near Lima, Perú. In particular,we appreciate the on-site help of PercyCondor (JRO), who also provided the statistics of the local Paracas winds.Appreciation is also extended to the Corporación Peruana de Aeropuertos Comercial (CORPAC) for providing permission to fly the DataHawk in the area. The late Dr. R. Frehlich and Dr. Y. Meillier of the University of Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) provided a number of useful comments and suggestions during the analysis portion of this project. Finally, we are happy to acknowledge the useful contributions of J. Rush (CIRES) during many phases of this project. This research was partially supported by the Army Research Office under ARO Contract W911NF-10-C-0109, the National Science Foundation under Award # AGS 1041963, in addition to an Innovative Research Proposal (IRP) awarded by CIRES.
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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Balsley, B.B., Lawrence, D.A., Woodman, R.F. et al. Fine-Scale Characteristics of Temperature, Wind, and Turbulence in the Lower Atmosphere (0–1,300 m) Over the South Peruvian Coast. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 147, 165–178 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-012-9774-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-012-9774-x