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The detection and measurement of turbulent structures in the atmospheric surface layer

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Abstract

Turbulence data from the planetary boundary layer (PBL) indicate the presence of deterministic turbulent structures. These structures often show up as asymmetric ramp patterns in measurements of the turbulent fluctuations of a scalar quantity in the atmospheric surface layer (ASL). The sign of the slope of the sharp upstream edge of such a triangular pattern depends on the thermal stability conditions of the ASL.

The turbulent structures in the ASL have been tracked by a detection method which searches for rapid and strong fluctuations in a signal — the VITA (variable interval time averaging) technique. This detection method has previously been employed in laboratory boundary layers. The VITA detection method performs well in the ASL and reveals the presence of vertically coherent turbulent structures, which look similar to those in laboratory shear flows. At the moment that a sharp temperature interface appears, the horizontal alongwind velocity shows a sharp increase, along with a sudden decrease of vertical velocity, independent of the thermal stability conditions of the ASL. The fluctuating static pressure reveals a maximum at that moment. The vertical turbulent transports show a twin-peak character around the time that the sharp jumps in the temperature and the velocity signals appear.

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  1. Department of Physics and Meteorology, Agricultural University of Wageningen, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    J. L. J. Schols

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  1. J. L. J. Schols
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Schols, J.L.J. The detection and measurement of turbulent structures in the atmospheric surface layer. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 29, 39–58 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00119118

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