Turbulent velocity distributions and implied trajectory models

Abstract

Well-mixed, first-order Lagrangian stochastic (LS) particle trajectory models are derived from several idealized ("toy") turbulent velocity distributions, and their performance is compared against the observations of Project Prairie Grass, i.e., the case of a continuous point source of tracer near the ground, in the horizontally homogeneous and neutrally stratified surface layer. Although in a context of limited information a Gaussian distribution is the preferred choice, and although the Gaussian corresponds to the simplest of this set of LS models (namely, the Langevin equation), models stemming from other velocity distributions give similar, albeit distinguishable, predictions.