Surface influence upon vertical profiles in the nocturnal boundary layer

✍ Scribed by J. R. Garratt

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1983
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 633 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-8314
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00164331

✦ Synopsis

Near-surface wind profiles in the nocturnal boundary layer, depth h, above relatively flat, treecovered terrain are described in the context of the analysis of Garratt (1980) for the unstable atmospheric boundary layer. The observations at two sites imply a surface-based transition layer, of depth z., within which the observed non-dimensional protiles QL are a modified form of the inertial sub-layer relation QM(z/L) = (1 + 52/L) according to QL-(1 + 5z/L)exp[-0.7(1-z/z,)],

where z is height above the zero-plane displacement and L is the Monin-Obukhov length.

At both sites the depth z. is significantly smaller than the appropriate neutral value (zIN) found from the previous analysis, as might be expected in the presence of a buoyant sink for turbulent kinetic energy.