Nonturbulent Processes Research Articles

Análise do escoamento horizontal de movimento não turbulento na camada limite noturna sob influência de obstruções

When turbulence is well developed, the diffusivity tends to quickly destroy other flow variability modes, so that the turbulent processes become dominant. However, in cases of weak or intermittent turbulence the turbulence scales are restricted to small values, both spatially and temporally. Non-turbulent processes can become important in such cases. This is particularly possible in the Stable Boundary Layer, some studies have focused on non-turbulent flow modes such as submeso, for example. Non-turbulent motions occur simultaneously on other scales and may to dominate the fluctuations of the horizontal flow and vertical flux The physical forcing of submeso flow is still poorly understood, but it is believed to depend significantly on local conditions such as topography and vegetation. The hypothesis assumed in this paper is that obstacles of different nature and dimensions, such as trees, buildings and topography elements affect different flow scales and analyze how turbulent and submeso processes are affected differently.

The eddy-covariance storage term in air: Consistent community resources improve flux measurement reliability

In the widely-used eddy-covariance (EC) technique, it is often assumed that the air storage term, i.e. the change of below-turbulence-sensor scalar abundance, is negligible or comprises a small part of net surface-atmosphere exchange (NSAE). Previous studies have demonstrated that this assumption is often violated where non-turbulent processes prevail, and thus it is important to measure and calculate air storage in flux measurements. However, the implementation of air storage measurement and calculation is not ubiquitous as EC standard turbulent flux. In most cases, air storage is not a standard data product or even neglected in EC flux tower measurements. In other cases, air storage term is calculated simply using only the measurements at the tower top. This gap between the ideal initiative and actual implementation motivates us to derive and release one of the first community resources to facilitate the consistent measurement and calculation of EC air storage across sites. These resources include (i) the standardized air storage term measurement setup design at National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) sites; (ii) the development and public release of the eddy4R.stor open-source air storage R-package; (iii) the derivation and public release of storage term data products, measured and calculated consistently across 47 NEON sites; and (iv) exploration the scientific usefulness of these resources through example use cases, specifically the exploration of the bias of the air storage term when different measurement level intensity used and exploration of the air storage term pattern. We expect the consistent air storage measurement and calculation can better serve the overall purpose of the EC technique to provide more reliable measurement of NSAE for the community. This can further benefit the community accurate depiction of the sub-daily to diurnal cycle of surface fluxes in doing carbon cycle flux partitioning, land modeling, and studying ecosystem response to weather extremes.

The Influence of Submeso Processes on Stable Boundary Layer Similarity Relationships

AbstractPrevious observational studies in the stable boundary layer diverge appreciably on the values of dimensionless ratios between turbulence-related quantities and on their stability dependence. In the present study, the hypothesis that such variability is caused by the influence of locally dependent nonturbulent processes, referred to as submeso, is tested and confirmed. This is done using six datasets collected at sites with different surface coverage. The time-scale dependence of wind components and temperature fluctuations is presented using the multiresolution decomposition, which allows the identification of the turbulence and submeso contributions to spectra and cospectra. In the submeso range, the spectra of turbulence kinetic energy range increases exponentially with time scale. The exponent decreases with the magnitude of the turbulent fluctuations at a similar manner at all sites. This fact is used to determine the smaller time scale with relevant influence of submeso processes and a ratio that quantifies the relative importance of such nonturbulent processes with respect to turbulence. Based on that, values for the local stability parameter that are unaffected by nonturbulent processes are found. It is shown that the dimensionless ratios do not usually converge to a given value as the time scale increases and that it is as a consequence of the locally dependent submeso influence. The ratios and their stability dependence are determined at the time scales with least influence of nonturbulent processes, but significant site-to-site variability persists. Combining all datasets, expressions for the dependence of the dimensionless ratios on the local stability parameter that minimize the role of the submeso contribution are proposed.

Characterizing the relative role of low-frequency and turbulent processes in the nocturnal boundary layer through the analysis of two-point correlations of the wind components

The study presents an analysis of two-point correlations between time series of nocturnal atmospheric wind, obtained from two micrometeorological towers, 45 m horizontally apart, each equipped with two sonic anemometers, 2.5 m vertically apart. It focuses on the scale dependence of the two-point correlations obtained from sensors vertically and horizontally separated. In particular, the role of low-frequency non-turbulent processes in the correlations is assessed, and compared to that of the turbulent scales of motion. The vertical correlations of the streamwise and vertical wind components show little dependence on the turbulence intensity, but those of the spanwise component decrease appreciably as it gets more turbulent. Multiresolution decomposition shows that the two-point correlations become increasingly dominated by low-frequency scales as it gets less turbulent, and that such large-scale processes are largely reduced in fully turbulent conditions. It is also shown that the vertical correlations of the spanwise wind component is negative for very small time scales. Horizontal two-point correlations obtained at the 45 m separation distance between the towers are almost entirely dominated by low-frequency motions, regardless of the turbulence intensity, but the magnitude of such correlations decreases with increasing turbulence intensity for any wind components. A comparison between the horizontal two-point correlations and autocorrelations taken with a time lag given by the ratio of the horizontal separation to the mean wind component in the direction that connects the two towers leads to the conclusion that the statistical properties of turbulence are often preserved over the horizontal distance, despite the lack of turbulence correlations for that separation.

Ocean Winds and Turbulent Air-Sea Fluxes Inferred From Remote Sensing

Air-sea turbulent fluxes determine the exchange of momentum, heat, freshwater, and gas between the atmosphere and ocean. These exchange processes are critical to a broad range of research questions spanning length scales from meters to thousands of kilometers and time scales from hours to decades. Examples are discussed (section 2). The estimation of surface turbulent fluxes from satellite is challenging and fraught with considerable errors (section 3); however, recent developments in retrievals (section 3) will greatly reduce these errors. Goals for the future observing system are summarized in section 4. Surface fluxes are defined as the rate per unit area at which something (e.g., momentum, energy, moisture, or CO Z ) is transferred across the air/sea interface. Wind- and buoyancy-driven surface fluxes are called surface turbulent fluxes because the mixing and transport are due to turbulence. Examples of nonturbulent processes are radiative fluxes (e.g., solar radiation) and precipitation (Schmitt et al., 2010). Turbulent fluxes are strongly dependent on wind speed; therefore, observations of wind speed are critical for the calculation of all turbulent surface fluxes. Wind stress, the vertical transport of horizontal momentum, also depends on wind direction. Stress is very important for many ocean processes, including upper ocean currents (Dohan and Maximenko, 2010) and deep ocean currents (Lee et al., 2010). On short time scales, this horizontal transport is usually small compared to surface fluxes. For long-term processes, transport can be very important but again is usually small compared to surface fluxes.

Turbulent exchange of CO2 over a broadleaf-Korean pine forest in Changbai Mountain, northeast China

Turbulent exchange of CO2 was measured continuously via the open-path eddy covariance technique over a broadleaf-Korean pine forest in Changbai Mountain, northeast China. The results show that with near-neutral atmospheric stratification, CO2 and vertical wind components measured over the forest canopy in the inertial sub-range followed the expected −2/3 power law. The dominant vertical eddy scale was about 100 m. The frequency ranges of eddy contributions to CO2 fluxes were mostly within 0.01–2.0 Hz. Large eddies with low frequency over the canopy contributed more to CO2 fluxes than small eddies. The open-path eddy covariance system could satisfy the estimation of turbulent fluxes over the canopy, but the CO2 fluxes between forest and atmosphere were generally underestimated at night because of the increment non-turbulent processes, suggesting that the CO2 fluxes estimated under weak turbulence need to be revised correspondingly.

Exponential Tails in the Centroid Velocity Distributions of Star-forming Regions

Probability density functions (pdfs) of 13CO emission line centroid (line-of-sight, intensity-weighted average) velocities are presented for several densely sampled molecular clouds as quantitative descriptors of their underlying dynamics. Some are found to be approximately Gaussian in form, but most of the pdfs exhibit relatively broader, often nearly exponential, tails, similar to the behavior found for pdfs of velocity differences and derivatives (but not the velocity field itself) in experiments and numerical simulations of incompressible turbulence. Other nonturbulent processes can also give rise to non-Gaussian pdfs, although we know of no interpretations (turbulent or otherwise) that can unambiguously account for the nearly exponential tails. The centroid pdfs presented here are less sensitive to systematic motions, optical depth effects, and secondary thermal components than are individual molecular line profiles, which have also been used as pdf estimators and which have also been recently found to exhibit excess wing emission similar to the broad pdf tails found here.

Measurement of turbulent energy dissipation rates in the middle atmosphere by radar techniques: A review

Radars operating in the frequency band between 2 MHz and several hundred megahertz are capable of supplying a large data base of measurements of turbulent energy dissipation rates in the middle atmosphere. So far this has not been achieved; only occasionally have such radars been used to produce estimates of turbulence intensities. In order to encourage a greater emphasis on this aspect of radar studies of the middle atmosphere, this review summarizes the various techniques which can be used to measure turbulent energy dissipation rates. It is shown how absolute measurements of backscatter cross section can be used to measure turbulence intensities. A new theory is presented which shows that the power backscattered from the mesosphere depends on the turbulent energy dissipation rate, the electron density gradient, the neutral density scale height, the total electron density and the temperature gradient. The effects of turbulence on the width of signal spectra received by these radars are discussed, and it is shown how turbulence intensities may be extracted from spectral width measurements. The importance of removing nonturbulent processes which also broaden the width of the power spectra, such as wind shear broadening and beam width broadening, are stressed.