Impact of terrain heterogeneity on near-surface turbulence structure

• Published in: Atmospheric research 2009-10, Vol.94 (2), p.254-269
• Main Authors: Fesquet, Clément, Drobinski, Philippe, Barthlott, Christian, Dubos, Thomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atmospheric surface layer; Coherent structures; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Meteorology; Sciences of the Universe; Surface heterogeneity; Turbulence measurements
• ISSN: 0169-8095; 1873-2895
• DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2009.06.003

This study investigates the impact of terrain heterogeneity on local turbulence measurements using 18 months of turbulence data taken on a 30 m tower at the SIRTA mixed land-use observatory under varying stability conditions and fetch configurations. These measurements show that turbulence variables such as the turbulent kinetic energy or momentum fluxes are strongly dependent on the upstream complexity of the terrain (presence of trees or buildings, open field). However, using a detection technique based on wavelet transforms which permits the isolation of the large-scale coherent structures from small-scale background fluctuations, the study shows that, for all stability conditions, whatever the upstream complexity of the terrain, the coherent structures display universal properties which are independent of the terrain nature: the frequency of occurrence, time duration of the coherent structures, the time separation between coherent structures and the relative contribution of the coherent structures to the total fluxes (momentum and heat) appear to be independent of the upstream roughness. This is an important result since coherent structures are known to transport a large portion of the total energy. This study extends to all stability conditions a numerical study by Fesquet et al. [Fesquet, C., Dupont, S., Drobinski, P., Barthlott, C., Dubos, T., 2008. Impact of terrain heterogeneities on coherent structures properties: experimental and numerical approaches. In: 18th Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence. No. 11B.1. Stockholm, Sweden., Fesquet, C., Dupont, S., Drobinski, P., Dubos, T., Barthlott, C., in press. Impact of terrain heterogeneity on coherent structure properties: numerical approach. Bound.-Layer Meteorol.] conducted in neutral conditions which shows that a reason for such behavior is that the production of local active turbulence in an internal boundary layer associated with coherent structure originating from the outer layer and impinging onto the ground is not sensitive to the nature of the terrain.