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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Using remotely sensed planetary boundary layer variables as estimates of areally averaged heat flux

Conference ·
OSTI ID:79746
Homogeneity across the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site is an issue of importance to all facets of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) program. The degree to which measurements at the central facility can be used to verify, improve, or develop relationships in radiative flux models that are subsequently used in Global Circulation Models (GCMs), for example, is tied directly to the representativeness of the local measurements at the central facility for the site as a whole. The relative variation of surface energy budget terms over a 350- km X 400km domain such as the SGP CART site can be extremely large. The Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) develops as a result of energy inputs from widely varying surfaces. The lower atmosphere effectively integrates the local inputs; measurements of PBL structure can potentially be used for estimates of surface heat flux over scales on the order of tens of kilometers. This project is focusing on two PBL quantities that are intimately tied to the surface heat flux: (1) the height of the mixed layer, z, that grows during daytime due to sensible heat flux input from the surface; and (2) the convective velocity scale, normally a scaling parameter defined by the product of the sensible heat flux and z, but in this case defined by coherent structures that connect the surface layer and the capping inversion that defines z.
Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-31109-ENG-38
OSTI ID:
79746
Report Number(s):
ANL/ER/CP--86004; CONF-9503140--5; ON: DE95012402
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English