Abstract
A comparison of momentum fluxes determined by the eddy-correlation method(ECM) and the inertial dissipation method (IDM) has been performed using longterm measurements over the sea. The measurements were made on the island ofÖstergarnsholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The results show that a`classical' form of the inertial dissipation method, i.e., assuming that the transportterms are negligible, and using an effective value for the Kolmogorov constant of0.55, can be used with a mean relative difference between the two methods of about15% for -1 < z/L < 0.5 (z being height and L the Obukhov length). The IDMmethod works best for high wind speeds and neutral conditions. For low windspeeds (U < 6 m s-1) the relation between the two methods is morecomplex. IDM then gives higher values than ECM on the average (about 20%),especially for swell conditions, indicating the need for an imbalance function inthe turbulent kinetic energy budget. Calculations of the effective Kolmogorovconstant, αa, suggest a dependence upon the wave age, αa increasing with increasing wave age, where the value 0.59 fits the data well for saturated waves.
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Sjöblom, A., Smedman, AS. Comparison Between Eddy-Correlation and Inertial Dissipation Methods in the Marine Atmospheric Surface Layer. Boundary-Layer Meteorology 110, 141–164 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026006402060
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026006402060