Experimental investigation of atmospheric boundary layer turbulence

Abstract

This paper describes how to measure turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) in order to address certain problems in modern atmospheric physics. These problems mainly relate to the Earth's energy budget (including the hydrological cycle) and biogeochemical cycles. Starting from the main characteristic numbers and the basic equations of atmospheric turbulent flow, we show what turbulence parameters are important to measure. Special attention is given to the various methods used to compute the turbulent fluxes. We analyse the range of scales which has to be measured to properly capture the eddies contributing to the turbulent transfers. This range of scales determines what sensors can be used in the atmospheric surface layer and in the ABL. We describe the most widely used instruments and their performances. The principal platforms used to deploy these instruments are examined. Aircraft are described in more details, because they allow a thorough exploration of the ABL. In the last section, some examples of ABL turbulence signals measured in various conditions are presented. These examples illustrate horizontally homogeneous turbulence as well as inhomogeneous signals for which standard analysis techniques cannot be used. We show how some recent techniques, like wavelet transforms, can help to investigate this kind of signal. At the end, we present what would be interesting to do in the near future for the study of ABL turbulence.