The energy and dissipation of turbulent fluctuations of wind velocity and temperature in the boundary layer of the atmosphere

Abstract

The relationships between the energy of small-scale turbulence and its dissipation rate are studied based on the data of long-term high-frequency measurements of temperature and wind velocity fluctuations in urban area. It is shown that the energy of wind velocity turbulent fluctuations is linearly related to the dissipation rate ɛ. The proportionality coefficient between turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and ɛ is dimensional and does not depend on the stratification of the atmosphere, the Richardson number, or the Monin-Obukhov scale. Measurements in different seasons show that this coefficient can be related to the mean velocity of adiabatic motions (sound speed or air temperature), which enables one to select a more universal constant, γ. A linear relationship between the temperature fluctuations variance (the characteristic of the inner energy of turbulence) and their dissipation rate is also shown. The revealed proportionality is confirmed by measurements in urban and forest conditions, as well as in the surface layer over a flat desert terrain.