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Katabatic Winds over Steep Slopes: Overview of a Field Experiment Designed to Investigate Slope-Normal Velocity and Near-Surface Turbulence

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Abstract

We describe a new field campaign over a steep, snowy \(30^{\circ }\) alpine slope, designed to investigate three recurrent issues in experimental studies of steep-slope katabatic winds. (1) Entrainment is known to be present in katabatic jets and has been estimated at the interface between the jet and the boundary layer above it. However, to our knowledge, the slope-normal velocity component has never been measured in the katabatic jet. (2) It is hard to accurately measure turbulence in the first tens of centimetres above the surface using standard sonic anemometry due to the filtering effect of the long instrument path. The present field experiment used a three-dimensional multi-hole pitot-type probe with a high sampling frequency (1250 Hz) that was positioned as close to the surface as 3 cm. It provides three-dimensional mean velocity and Reynolds stress tensor from which dissipation can be estimated, as well as spectra for the turbulent quantities. Energy spectra reveal a well-developed inertial range and capture the inertial scales and some of the dissipative scales. (3) Measuring turbulence on a mast usually provides information about mean and turbulent quantities at certain discrete heights because the sensors are sparsely located inside the jet. We present the first measurements of well-developed katabatic flows where the full wind-speed and temperature profiles acquired, from tethered balloon are available at the location of the measurement mast, which comprises three-dimensional anemometry and thermometry.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the French National program LEFE (Les Enveloppes Fluides et l’Environnement) under the application COCA AO INSU LEFE 2021 and by a Grant from Labex OSUG@2020 (Investissements d’avenir ANR10 LABX56). We would like to thank J. Dagaut, M. Guilbot, A. Martin, H. Michallet, M. Obligado, C. Poncet, I. Redor, L. Seguinot and T. Sue for their participation to the field experiment. We also would like to thank the city administration of Revel (38420, France) for their logistical support.

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  1. Laboratoire des Écoulements Géophysiques et Industriels (LEGI), Grenoble, France

    Claudine Charrondière, Christophe Brun & Martin Obligado

  2. Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Grenoble, France

    Claudine Charrondière, Jean-Martial Cohard, Jean-Emmanuel Sicart, Romain Biron, Catherine Coulaud & Hélène Guyard

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  1. Claudine Charrondière
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Correspondence to Claudine Charrondière.

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Charrondière, C., Brun, C., Cohard, JM. et al. Katabatic Winds over Steep Slopes: Overview of a Field Experiment Designed to Investigate Slope-Normal Velocity and Near-Surface Turbulence. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 182, 29–54 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-021-00644-y

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