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Title: Turbulence and Radiation in Stratocumulus-Topped Marine Boundary Layers: A Case Study from VOCALS-REx

Journal Article · · Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4]
  1. Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States). Dept. of Environmental Sciences; Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
  2. Univ. of Miami, Miami, FL (United States). Division of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography
  3. Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States). Dept. of Environmental Sciences
  4. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). Earth System Research Lab., Physical Sciences Division
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Observations made during a 24-h period as part of the Variability of the American Monsoon Systems (VAMOS) Ocean–Cloud–Atmosphere–Land Study Regional Experiment (VOCALS-REx) are analyzed to study the radiation and turbulence associated with the stratocumulus-topped marine boundary layer (BL). The first 14 h exhibited a well-mixed (coupled) BL with an average cloud-top radiative flux divergence of ~130 W m22; the BL was decoupled during the last 10 h with negligible radiative flux divergence. The averaged radiative cooling very close to the cloud top was -9.04 K h-1 in coupled conditions and -3.85 K h-1 in decoupled conditions. This is the first study that combined data from a vertically pointing Doppler cloud radar and a Doppler lidar to yield the vertical velocity structure of the entire BL. The averaged vertical velocity variance and updraft mass flux during coupled conditions were higher than those during decoupled conditions at all levels by a factor of 2 or more. The vertical velocity skewness was negative in the entire BL during coupled conditions, whereas it was weakly positive in the lower third of the BL and negative above during decoupled conditions. A formulation of velocity scale is proposed that includes the effect of cloud-top radiative cooling in addition to the surface buoyancy flux. When scaled by the velocity scale, the vertical velocity variance and coherent downdrafts had similar magnitude during the coupled and decoupled conditions. Finally, the coherent updrafts that exhibited a constant profile in the entire BL during both the coupled and decoupled conditions scaled well with the convective velocity scale to a value of ~0.5.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0008584; FG02-08ER64531
OSTI ID:
1396179
Journal Information:
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Vol. 53, Issue 1; ISSN 1558-8424
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 28 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

UCLALES–SALSA v1.0: a large-eddy model with interactive sectional microphysics for aerosol, clouds and precipitation journal January 2017
Drizzle and Turbulence Below Closed Cellular Marine Stratocumulus Clouds journal June 2019
Estimates of entrainment in closed cellular marine stratocumulus clouds from the MAGIC field campaign
  • Ghate, Virendra P.; Mechem, David B.; Cadeddu, Maria P.
  • Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 145, Issue 721 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3514
journal March 2019
UCLALES–SALSA v1.0: a large-eddy model with interactive sectional microphysics for aerosol, clouds and precipitation text January 2017

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
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