Relating Mean Radiosounding Profiles to Surface Fluxes for the Very Stable Boundary Layer

A dataset collected during a measurement campaign in the middle of the Po Valley, Italy, is used to investigate the boundary-layer structure in stable conditions. Empirical formulations for temperature and wind profiles derived from Monin–Obukhov similarity theory are used as regression curves to fi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Boundary-layer meteorology 2013-05, Vol.147 (2), p.203-215
Main Authors: Caporaso, L., Riccio, A., Di Giuseppe, F., Tampieri, F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air temperature
Analysis
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Atmospheric Sciences
Boundaries
Boundary layer
Boundary layers
Convection, turbulence, diffusion. Boundary layer structure and dynamics
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Fittings
Fluxes
Mathematical models
Meteorology
Numerical weather forecasting
Regression
Similarity
Thermodynamics
Valleys
Weather forecasting
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Summary:A dataset collected during a measurement campaign in the middle of the Po Valley, Italy, is used to investigate the boundary-layer structure in stable conditions. Empirical formulations for temperature and wind profiles derived from Monin–Obukhov similarity theory are used as regression curves to fit radiosounding profiles in the lower half of the boundary-layer. The best fitting parameters of the regression are then compared to the surface turbulent fluxes as measured by a co-located sonic anemometer. This comparison shows significant discrepancies and supports earlier results showing that surface fluxes, in the limit of high stability, are not adequate scalings for mean profiles. The most evident differences are found for cases for which the bulk Richardson number turns out to be quite large. One of the practical consequences is that boundary-layer height diagnostic formulations that mainly rely on surface fluxes are in disagreement with those obtained by inspecting the thermodynamic profiles recorded during the radiosounding ascent. Moreover the incorrect scaling of similarity profiles in stable conditions leads to the erroneous diagnosis of 2-m air temperatures used in numerical weather prediction validation.
ISSN:0006-8314
1573-1472
DOI:10.1007/s10546-012-9788-4