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Title: LABLE: A Multi-Institutional, Student-Led, Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment

Journal Article · · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)
  2. NOAA/National Severe Storms Lab., Norman, OK (United States)
  3. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  4. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

This paper presents an overview of the Lower Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (LABLE), which included two measurement campaigns conducted at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains site in Oklahoma during 2012 and 2013. LABLE was conducted as a collaborative effort between the University of Oklahoma (OU), the National Severe Storms Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and the ARM program. LABLE can be considered unique in that it was designed as a multi-phase, low-cost, multi-agency collaboration. Graduate students served as principal investigators and took the lead in designing and conducting experiments aimed at examining boundary-layer processes. The main objective of LABLE was to study turbulent phenomena in the lowest 2 km of the atmosphere over heterogeneous terrain using a variety of novel atmospheric profiling techniques. Several instruments from OU and LLNL were deployed to augment the suite of in-situ and remote sensing instruments at the ARM site. The complementary nature of the deployed instruments with respect to resolution and height coverage provides a near-complete picture of the dynamic and thermodynamic structure of the atmospheric boundary layer. Here, this paper provides an overview of the experiment including i) instruments deployed, ii) sampling strategies, iii) parameters observed, and iv) student involvement. To illustrate these components, the presented results focus on one particular aspect of LABLE, namely the study of the nocturnal boundary layer and the formation and structure of nocturnal low-level jets. During LABLE, low-level jets were frequently observed and they often interacted with mesoscale atmospheric disturbances such as frontal passages.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830; SC0006898
OSTI ID:
1243247
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-106207; 830403000
Journal Information:
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 96, Issue 10; ISSN 0003-0007
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 (7)

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Evaluation of single and multiple Doppler lidar techniques to measure complex flow during the XPIA field campaign journal January 2017
Testing and validation of multi-lidar scanning strategies for wind energy applications: Testing and validation of multi-lidar scanning strategies for wind energy applications journal March 2016
Contrasting Characteristics and Evolution of Southerly Low-Level Jets During Different Boundary-Layer Regimes journal October 2019
Evaluation of three lidar scanning strategies for turbulence measurements journal January 2015
An Overview of Low‐Level Jet Winds and Corresponding Mixed Layer Depths During PECAN collection January 2019

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