Virtual heat entrainment in the mixed layer over very rough terrain

✍ Scribed by William P. Kustas; Wilfried Brutsaert

• Book ID: 104629793
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1987
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 913 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-8314
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00121561

✦ Synopsis

Inversion fluxes of virtual heat were computed for seven clear days over the Pre-Alpine region in Switzerland with profile data from a sequence of radio soundings. Several entrainment models based on the turbulent kinetic energy equation were tested with the data. It was found that the relatively simple equation first proposed by Tennekes (1973) which contains both a convective and a mechanical term for the entrainment does as well as the more complicated parameterizations. In addition, the effect of water vapor on the magnitude of the buoyancy fluxes at the surface and at the inversion was observed to be important since the Bowen ratio normally ranged between 0.1 and 0.2.