Boundary layer structure over areas of heterogeneous heat fluxes
- Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Air Resources Lab. Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Div.
In general circulation models (GCMs), some properties of a grid element are necessarily considered homogeneous. That is, for each grid volume there is associated a particular combination of boundary layer depth, vertical profiles of wind and temperature, surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat, etc. In reality, all of these quantities may exhibit significant spatial variations within the grid area, and the larger the area the greater the likely variations. In balancing the benefits of higher resolution against increased computational time and expense, it is useful to consider what the consequences of such subgrid-scale variability may be. Moveover, in interpreting the results of a simulation, one must be able to define an appropriate average value over a grid. There are two aspects of this latter problem: (1) in observations, how does one take a set of discrete or volume-averaged measurements and relate these to properties of the entire domain, and (2) in computations, how can subgrid-scale features be accounted for in the model parameterizations To address these and related issues, two field campaigns were carried out near Boardman, Oregon, in June 1991 and 1992. These campaigns were designed to measure the surface fluxes of latent and sensible heat over adjacent areas with strongly contrasting surface types and to measure the response of the boundary layer to those fluxes. This paper discuses some initial findings from those campaigns.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38; W-7405-ENG-36; AC06-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 6295652
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/ER/CP-79191; CONF-930133-11; ON: DE93010657
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 73. American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting, Anaheim, CA (United States), 17-22 Jan 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Boundary layer structure over areas of heterogeneous heat fluxes
Boundary layer structure over areas of heterogeneous heat fluxes