Regional turbulent statistics over contrasting natural surfaces

Summary

Regional turbulent fluxes of momentum, sensible and latent heat collected over both agricultural and native vegetation in the south west of Australia are presented. Analysis of the energy spectrum illustrates that the most energetic eddies are between scales of 20 metres to 5 kilometres and highlights the spatial distance required to obtain representative regional fluxes. For the sensible heat flux, this distance is a function of measurement height whereas the latent flux is also influenced by surface variability. Statistics of these fluxes highlight that for the unstable surface layer, despite marked differences in the underlying vegetation and the corresponding sources of heat and moisture, heat is transported more efficiently than water vapour from the ground surface.