Dissipation rates of turbulent kinetic energy and temperature and humidity variances over different surfaces

Abstract

Dissipation rates of turbulent kinetic energy, and temperature and humidity variances have been analyzed using turbulent data collected from the Gobi desert, grassland, and suburban and urban sites that have different physical conditions. Instrumentation was installed at heights of 4.9 m, 3.45 m, 75 m and 47 m over the Gobi desert, grassland, and suburban and urban sites, respectively. The dimensionless dissipation rates of turbulent ϕ ε , kinetic energy, temperature variance ϕ N , and humidity variance ϕ γ are found to be more than 20% less than that required to balance the production of energy by wind shear and the variances by temperature and humidity gradients. The deficits appear to increase with the increase of absolute stability parameter. Combining the results from previous and present studies, the non-dimensional dissipation rates of turbulent kinetic energy, and temperature and humidity variances are modified by using the stability parameter.