Turbulent fluxes from Helipod flights above quasi-homogeneous patches within the LITFASS area

Turbulent fluxes of sensible and latent heat were measured with the helicopter-borne turbulence probe Helipod over a heterogeneous landscape around the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg during the STINHO-2 and LITFASS-2003 field experiments. Besides the determination of area-averaged heat fluxes, the analysis focused on different aspects of the response of the turbulent structure of the convective boundary layer (CBL) on the surface heterogeneity. A special flight pattern was designed to study flux profiles both over quasi-homogeneous sub-areas of the study region (representing the major land use types—forest, farmland, water) and over a typical mixture of the different surfaces. Significant differences were found between the heat fluxes over the individual surfaces along flight legs at about 80 m above ground level, in agreement with large-aperture scintillometer measurements. This flux separation was still present during some flights at levels near the middle of the CBL. Different scales for the blending height and horizontal heterogeneity were calculated, but none of them could be identified as a reliable indicator of the mixing state of the lower CBL. With the exception of the flights over water, the latent heat flux measurements generally showed a larger statistical error when compared with the sensible heat flux. Correlation coefficients a nd integral length scales were used to characterise the interplay between the vertical transport of sensible and latent heat, which was found to vary between ‘fairly correlated’ and ‘decoupled’, also depending on the soil moisture conditions.     

Airborne measurements of turbulent fluxes during LITFASS-98: Comparison with ground measurements and remote sensing in a case study

Summary ?Simultaneous flight measurements with the research aircraft Do 128 and the helicopter-borne turbulence probe Helipod were performed on 18 June 1998 during the LITFASS-98 field experiment. The area-averaged turbulent vertical fluxes of momentum, sensible, and latent heat were determined on a 15 km × 15 km and a 10 km × 10 km flight pattern, respectively. The flights were carried out over heterogeneous terrain at different altitudes within a moderately convective boundary layer with Cumulus clouds. Co-spectra-analysis demonstrated that the small scale turbulent transport was completely sampled, while the comparatively small flight patterns were possibly of critical size regarding the large-scale turbulence. The phygoide of the airplane was identified as a significant peak in some co-spectra. The turbulent fluxes of momentum and sensible heat at 80 m above the ground showed systematic dependence on the location of the flight legs above the heterogeneous terrain. This was not observed for the latent heat flux, probably due to the vertical distribution of humidity in the boundary layer. Statistical error analysis of the fluxes F showed that the systematic statistical error ΔF was one order of magnitude smaller than the standard deviation σ _F . The difference between area-averaged fluxes derived from simultaneous Helipod and Do 128 measurements was much smaller than σ _F , indicating that the systematic statistical error was possibly over-estimated by the usual method. In the upper half of the boundary layer the airborne-measured sensible heat flux agreed well with windprofiler/RASS data. A linear fit was the best approximation for the height dependence of all three fluxes. The linear extrapolations of the latent and sensible heat fluxes to the ground were in good agreement with tower, scintillometer, and averaged ground-station measurements on various surface types. Systematic discrepancies between airborne and ground-based measurements were not found. Received June 18, 2001; revised December 21, 2001; accepted June 3, 2002     

Scintillometer-Based Turbulent Fluxes of Sensible and Latent Heat Over a Heterogeneous Land Surface – A Contribution to Litfass-2003

The performance of a combined large aperture scintillometer (LAS) and a millimetre wave scintillometer (MWS) for estimating surface fluxes of sensible and latent heat over natural landscape is investigated, using data gathered during LITFASS-2003. For this purpose the LAS–MWS system was installed in a moderate heterogeneous landscape over a path length of 4.7 km with an effective beam height of 43 m. The derived surface fluxes have been compared with aggregated eddy-covariance (EC) measurements. The fluxes of sensible and latent heat from the LAS–MWS combination, as well as sensible heat fluxes of the single LAS, agreed fairly well with the EC-based fluxes, considering the uncertainties of the similarity stability functions and observed energy imbalance.     

Surface fluxes estimation over agricultural areas. Comparisonof methods and the effects of land surface inhomogeneity

Summary  The Bowen Ratio-Energy Balance (BREB) and the aerodynamic method were used to estimate turbulent fluxes of sensible and latent heat flux over an irrigated agricultural area (IAA) and over two dry agricultural areas (DAA1 and DAA2). These turbulent fluxes were analysed and particular attention paid to two specific areas. First, a quantitative analysis of sensible and latent heat fluxes obtained by the BREB method was carried out, taking into account different soil type, vegetation and surface conditions. The results showed that in IAA latent heat flux was higher than sensible heat flux, except in summer months, while in DAA1 and DAA2, sensible heat flux was higher except in the months when the vegetation was at the stage of maximum development. Second, sensible and latent heat fluxes estimates from the BREB method were compared with those obtained from the aerodynamic method. In this comparison factors such as soil type, soil vegetation cover, homogeneity or inhomogeneity of terrain and mesoscale effects such as orography and wind patterns were taken into account. The results show that in conditions of light wind, the two methods only concur if the condition of horizontal homogeniety is fulfilled. The influence of inhomogeneity seems to decrease and agreement between methods improves, if the wind is stronger and the effects of meso and synoptic scales are predominant. Received May 18, 1999/Revised March 15, 2000     

Simulation of surface energy fluxes using high-resolution non-hydrostatic simulations and comparisons with measurements for the LITFASS-2003 experiment

Land-surface heterogeneity effects on the subgrid scale of regional climate and numerical weather prediction models are of vital interest for the energy and mass exchange between the surface and the atmospheric boundary layer. High-resolution numerical model simulations can be used to quantify these effects, and are a tool used to obtain area-averaged surface fluxes over heterogeneous land surfaces. We present high-resolution model simulations for the LITFASS area near Berlin during the LITFASS-2003 experiment, which were carried out using the non-hydrostatic model FOOT3DK of the University of Köln with horizontal resolutions of 1 km and 250 m. The LITFASS-2003 experimental dataset is used for comparison. The screen level quantities show good quality for the simulated pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction. Averaged over the four week experimental period, simulated surface energy fluxes at land stations show a small bias for the turbulent heat fluxes and an underestimation of the net radiation caused by excessive cloudiness in the simulations. For eight selected days with low cloud amounts, the net radiation bias is close to zero, but the sensible heat flux shows a strong positive bias. Large differences are found for latent heat fluxes over a lake, which are partly due to local effects on the measurements, but an additional problem seems to be the overestimation of the turbulent exchange under stable conditions in the daytime internal boundary layer over the lake. In the area average over the LITFASS area of 20 ×  20 km², again a strong positive bias of 70 W m^?2 for the sensible heat is present. For the low soil moisture conditions during June 2003, the simulation of the turbulent heat fluxes is sensitive to variations in the soil type and its hydrological properties. Under these conditions, the supply of ground water to the lowest soil layer should be accounted for. Different area-averaging methods are tested. The experimental set-up of the LITFASS-2003 experiment is found to be well suited for the computation of area-averaged turbulent heat fluxes.     

Validation of the “Lokal-Modell” over heterogeneous land surfaces using aircraft-based measurements of the REEEFA experiment and comparison with micro-scale simulations

Summary An aircraft-based experimental investigation of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) structure and of the energy exchange processes over heterogeneous land surfaces is presented. The measurements are used for the validation of the mesoscale atmospheric model “Lokal-Modell” (LM) of the German Weather Service with 2.8 km resolution. In addition, high-resolution simulations using the non-hydrostatic model FOOT3DK with 250 m resolution are performed in order to resolve detailed surface heterogeneities. Two special observation periods in May 1999 show comparable convective boundary layer (CBL) conditions. For one case study vertical profiles and area averages of meteorological quantities and energy fluxes are investigated in detail. The measured net radiation is highly dependent on surface albedo, and the latent heat flux exhibits a strong temporal variability in the investigation area. A reduction of this variability is possible by aggregation of multiple flight patterns. To calculate surface fluxes from aircraft measurements at low altitude, turbulent energy fluxes were extrapolated to the ground by the budget method, which turned out to be well applicable for the sensible heat flux, but not for the latent flux. The development of the ABL is well captured by the LM simulation. The comparison of spatiotemporal averages shows an underestimation of the observed net radiation, which is mainly caused by thin low-level clouds in the LM compared to observed scattered CBL clouds. The sensible heat flux is reproduced very well, while the latent flux is highly overestimated especially above forests. The realistic representation of surface heterogeneities in the investigation area in the FOOT3DK simulations leads to improvements for the energy fluxes, but an overestimation of the latent heat flux still persists. A study of upscaling effects yields more structures than the LM fields when averaged to the same scale, which are partly caused by the non-linear effects of parameter aggregation on the LM scale.     

Processing and quality control of flux data during LITFASS-2003

Different aspects of the quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of micrometeorological measurements were combined to create a comprehensive algorithm which was then applied to experimental data from LITFASS-2003 (Lindenberg Inhomogeneous Terrain—Fluxes between Atmosphere and Surface: a long term Study). Eddy-covariance measurements of the latent heat flux were the main focus of the QA/QC efforts. The results of a turbulence sensor intercomparison experiment showed deviations between the different eddy-covariance systems on the order of 15%, or less than 30 W m⁻², for the latent heat flux and 5%, or less than 10 W m⁻², for the sensible heat flux. In order to avoid uncertainties due to the post-processing of turbulence data, a comprehensive software package was used for the analysis of experimental data from LITFASS-2003, including all necessary procedures for corrections and quality control. An overview of the quality test results shows that for most of the days more than 80% of the available latent heat flux data are of high quality so long as there are no instrumental problems. The representativeness of a flux value for the target land-use type was analysed using a stochastic footprint model. Different methods to calculate soil heat fluxes at the surface are discussed and a sensitivity analysis is conducted to select the most robust method for LITFASS-2003. The lack of energy balance closure, which was found for LITFASS-2003, can probably be attributed to the presence of low-frequency flux contributions that cannot be resolved with an averaging time of 30 min. Though the QA/QC system has been developed for the requirements of LITFASS-2003, it can also be applied to other experiments dealing with similar objectives.     

Surface turbulent flux measurements over the Loess Plateau for a semi-arid climate change study

In order to provide high quality data for climate change studies, the data quality of turbulent flux measurements at the station of SACOL (Semi-Arid Climate & Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University), which is located on a semi-arid grassland over the Loess Plateau in China, has been analyzed in detail. The effects of different procedures of the flux corrections on CO₂, momentum, and latent and sensible heat fluxes were assessed. The result showed that coordinate rotation has a great influence on the momentum flux but little on scalar fluxes. For coordinate rotation using the planar fit method, different regression planes should be determined for different wind direction sectors due to the heterogeneous nature of the ground surface. Sonic temperature correction decreased the sensible heat flux by about 9%, while WPL correction (correction for density fluctuations) increased the latent heat flux by about 10%. WPL correction is also particularly important for CO₂ fluxes. Other procedures of flux corrections, such as the time delay correction and frequency response correction, do not significantly influence the turbulent fluxes. Furthermore, quality tests on stationarity and turbulence development conditions were discussed. Parameterizations of integral turbulent characteristics (ITC) were tested and a specific parameterization scheme was provided for SACOL. The ITC test on turbulence development conditions was suggested to be applied only for the vertical velocity. The combined results of the quality tests showed that about 62%–65% of the total data were of high quality for the latent heat flux and CO₂ flux, and as much as about 76% for the sensible heat flux. For the momentum flux, however, only about 35% of the data were of high quality.     

Key results and implications from phase 1(c) of the Project for Intercomparison of Land-surface Parametrization Schemes

 Using atmospheric forcing data generated from a general circulation climate model, sixteen land surface schemes participating in the Project for the Intercomparison of Land-surface Parametrization Schemes (PILPS) were run off-line to equilibrium using forcing data from a GCM representative of a tropical forest and a mid-latitude grassland grid point. The values for each land surface parameter (roughness length, minimum stomatal resistance, soil depth etc.) were provided. Results were quality controlled and analyzed, focusing on the scatter simulated amongst the models. There were large differences in how the models’ partitioned available energy between sensible and latent heat. Annually averaged, simulations for the tropical forest ranged by 79 1 3;W m^-2 for the sensible heat flux and 80 W m^-2 for the latent heat flux. For the grassland, simulations ranged by 34 W m^-2 for the sensible heat flux and 27 W m^-2 for the latent heat flux. Similarly large differences were found for simulated runoff and soil moisture and at the monthly time scale. The models’ simulation of annually averaged effective radiative temperature varied with a range, between all the models, of 1.4 K for tropical forest and 2.2 K for the grassland. The simulation of latent and sensible heat fluxes by a standard ‘bucket’ models was anomalous although this could be corrected by an additional resistance term. These results imply that the current land surface models do not agree on the land surface climate when the atmospheric forcing and surface parameters are prescribed. The nature of the experimental design, it being offline and with artificial forcing, generally precludes judgements concerning the relative quality of any specific model. Although these results were produced de-coupled from a host model, they do cast doubt on the reliability of land surface schemes. It is therefore a priority to resolve the disparity in the simulations, understand the reasons behind the scatter and to determine whether this lack of agreement in de-coupled tests is reproduced in coupled experiments. Received: 15 October 1997 / Accepted: 22 April 1999     

Experimental determination of turbulent fluxes over the heterogeneous LITFASS area: Selected results from the LITFASS-98 experiment

Summary ?During the LITFASS-98 experiment, local flux measurements were performed over five different types of underlying surface (grass, barley, triticale, pine forest, water) in a heterogeneous landscape using eddy covariance and profile techniques over a three week time period in June, 1998. Estimates of the area-integrated sensible heat flux during daytime were obtained from continuous measurements with a large aperture scintillometer (LAS) along a 4.7 km path. The calculation of a mean diurnal cycle of the fluxes during the experiment revealed significant differences between the main land use classes. A land-use weighted average of the sensible heat flux was found to be in good agreement with the LAS based estimate, which in turn was supported by other regionally integrated flux estimates from budget considerations and aircraft measurements for a few case studies. The profiles of turbulent quantities measured along a 99 m-tower significantly deviate from “idealised” profiles measured over homogeneous terrain. Peculiarities in the profile structure could be attributed to the heterogeneity of the terrain, namely to the differences in the surface characteristics of the footprint areas for the different tower levels. Received June 6, 2001; revised January 15, 2002; accepted April 4, 2002     

Further Development of the Vegetated Urban Canopy Model Including a Grass-Covered Surface Parametrization and Photosynthesis Effects

The vegetated urban canopy model (VUCM), which includes parametrizations of urban physical processes for artificial surfaces and vegetated areas in an integrated system, has been further developed by including physical processes associated with grass-covered surfaces in urban pervious surfaces and the photosynthesis effects of urban vegetation. Using measurements made from three urban/suburban sites during the BUBBLE field campaign in 2002, the model’s performance in modelling surface fluxes (momentum flux, net radiation, sensible and latent heat fluxes and storage heat flux) and canopy air conditions (canopy air temperature and specific humidity) was critically evaluated for the non-precipitation and the precipitation days. The observed surface fluxes at the urban/suburban sites were significantly altered by precipitation as well as urban vegetation. Especially, the storage heat at urban surfaces and underlying substrates varied drastically depending on weather conditions while having an important role in the formation of a nocturnal urban surface layer. Unlike the nighttime canopy air temperature that was largely affected by the storage-heat release, the daytime canopy air conditions were highly influenced by the vertical turbulent exchange with the overlying atmosphere. The VUCM well reproduced these observed features in surface fluxes and canopy air conditions at all sites while performing well for both the non-precipitation and the precipitation days. The newly implemented parametrizations clearly improved the model’s performance in the simulation of sensible and latent heat fluxes at the sites, more noticeably at the suburban site where the vegetated area fraction is the largest among the sites. Sensitivity analyses for model input parameters in VUCM elucidated the relative importance of the morphological, aerodynamic, hydrological and radiative/thermal properties in modelling urban surface fluxes and canopy air conditions for daytime and nighttime periods. These results suggest that the VUCM has great potential for urban atmospheric numerical modelling for a range of cities and weather conditions in addition to having a better physical basis in the representation of urban vegetated areas and associated physical processes.     

Large-Eddy Simulations of Surface Heterogeneity Effects on the Convective Boundary Layer During the LITFASS-2003 Experiment

We investigate the impact of observed surface heterogeneities during the LITFASS-2003 experiment on the convective boundary layer (CBL). Large-eddy simulations (LES), driven by observed near-surface sensible and latent heat fluxes, were performed for the diurnal cycle and compare well with observations. As in former studies of idealized one- and two-dimensional heterogeneities, secondary circulations developed that are superimposed on the turbulent field and that partly take over the vertical transport of heat and moisture. The secondary circulation patterns vary between local and roll-like structures, depending on the background wind conditions. For higher background wind speeds, the flow feels an effective surface heat-flux pattern that derives from the original pattern by streamwise averaging. This effective pattern generates a roll-like secondary circulation with roll axes along the mean boundary-layer wind direction. Mainly the upstream surface conditions control the secondary circulation pattern, where the fetch increases with increasing background wind speed. Unlike the entrainment flux that appears to be slightly decreased compared to the homogeneously-heated CBL, the vertical flux of sensible heat appears not to be modified in the mixed layer, while the vertical flux of latent heat shows different responses to secondary circulations. The study illustrates that sufficient time averaging and ensemble averaging is required to separate the heterogeneity-induced signals from the raw LES turbulence data. This might be an important reason why experiments over heterogeneous terrain in the past did not give any clear evidence of heterogeneity-induced effects.     

Creating Surface Flux Maps from Airborne Measurements: Application to the Mackenzie Area GEWEX Study MAGS 1999

The objective of this study is to produce two-dimensional maps of the sensible and the latent heat fluxes from airborne measurements, based on the analysis of a flight pattern, called grid flights. A footprint model with along-wind and cross-wind components was used to project the measured fluxes onto the surface map. The method was applied to measurements over Arctic tundra during the Mackenzie Area GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) Study (MAGS) 1999. The resulting flux estimates were computed by integration of a wavelet transform, and corrected for long wavelength losses using information from 100 km long regional runs that were conducted close to the grid flights. The random flux error was estimated based on the flight length that is represented in each map element, and a map resolution of 3 × 3 km was chosen in order to keep the average random error of the latent heat flux below 25%. The random error of the sensible heat flux was smaller by a factor of 1.4 on average. An analysis of airborne flux measurements at different altitudes showed no significant increase of flux estimates for measurement heights below 90 m. Thus, the fluxes measured at heights between 48 and 64 m were not corrected for vertical flux divergence. The resulting flux maps provide quantitative two-dimensional estimates of the energy exchange between the surface and the atmosphere during the snow melt period in an Arctic environment, which are well-suited for calibration and validation of numerical models.     

Evaluation of the ERA-40 air–sea surface heat flux spin-up

Ocean models depend strongly on surface fluxes. When computed from atmospheric models, fluxes are affected by spin-up, i.e. they increase (or decrease) with forecast length. Such behavior may bias ocean models. The European Centre for Medium Range Forecasts (ECMWF) 40-year re-analysis (ERA-40) has been used to quantify short-range spin-ups of radiative and turbulent heat fluxes. Fluxes are compared as differences between two runs with the same initialization time. This method allows flux analysis over short-range forecasts as a function of distance from the initialization time. Results indicate that (i) latent heat flux spin-up increases with time but levels off after 24 h; (ii) sensible and radiative flux spin-ups remain constant after 6 h; (iii) regional spin-up of turbulent fluxes are systematic and can be larger than 30% for sensible heat but never exceeds 15% for latent heat; (iv) spin-up depends upon the season. The same analysis has been carried out with the ECMWF 15-year re-analysis (ERA-15); spin-ups in ERA-40 have been generally smaller than those in ERA-15.     

A Simple Model for the Afternoon and Early Evening Decay of Convective Turbulence Over Different Land Surfaces

A simple model to study the decay of turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) in the convective surface layer is presented. In this model, the TKE is dependent upon two terms, the turbulent dissipation rate and the surface buoyancy fluctuations. The time evolution of the surface sensible heat flux is modelled based on fitting functions of actual measurements from the LITFASS-2003 field campaign. These fitting functions carry an amplitude and a time scale. With this approach, the sensible heat flux can be estimated without having to solve the entire surface energy balance. The period of interest covers two characteristic transition sub-periods involved in the decay of convective boundary-layer turbulence. The first sub-period is the afternoon transition, when the sensible heat flux starts to decrease in response to the reduction in solar radiation. It is typically associated with a decay rate of TKE of approximately t ⁻² (t is time following the start of the decay) after several convective eddy turnover times. The early evening transition is the second sub-period, typically just before sunset when the surface sensible heat flux becomes negative. This sub-period is characterized by an abrupt decay in TKE associated with the rapid collapse of turbulence. Overall, the results presented show a significant improvement of the modelled TKE decay when compared to the often applied assumption of a sensible heat flux decreasing instantaneously or with a very short forcing time scale. In addition, for atmospheric modelling studies, it is suggested that the afternoon and early evening decay of sensible heat flux be modelled as a complementary error function.     

东亚夏季风边缘摆动区陆面能量时空分布规律及其与气候环境的关系

东亚夏季风边缘摆动区既是气候敏感区,也是生态脆弱区和农牧交错带,其特殊陆面能量空间分布格局和演变特征对理解该区域天气和气候变化有重要意义。然而受限于陆面观测资料缺乏,对这部分陆面特征的认识仍非常有限。通过对34 a陆面模拟集成产品的分析,发现夏季风边缘摆动区内潜热和感热通量在空间上表现出明显的过渡特征,由摆动区外的相对均衡状态进入到摆动区内的“突变转换”;陆面能量平衡具有明显的区域特征,能量平衡各分量在纬向和经向都表现出了“阶梯型”的变化。就演变而言,区域平均感热和潜热没有表现出规律性的递减或递增趋势,波动幅度在±20%以内,但在20世纪末存在一个较为明显的摆动相位转换:1997年之前夏季风边缘摆动区夏季风相对活跃,潜热通量总体高于其气候值而感热通量则低于其气候值,之后出现了相反的现象。此外,区内感热和潜热通量对气候环境干湿性质非常敏感,两者存在明显的线性关系。      

半干旱区不同下垫面近地层湍流通量特征分析

本文分析了2003～2005年半干旱区退化草地和农田下垫面近地层湍流通量日、季、年的变化特征, 探讨了不同年份的气候背景和下垫面土地覆被对地气交换过程的影响。结果表明: 半干旱区退化草地和农田近地层湍流通量具有明显的日变化、季变化周期; 地气间通量交换年际间的差异主要受当年的气候背景影响, 尤其是降水的影响; 同时还受到下垫面覆被的影响。潜热通量和感热通量的能量分配比率呈反位相变化, 且农田和退化草地的变化趋势相似, 在夏季潜热通量所占比例均超过感热通量; 两种下垫面的波恩比月均值变化趋势十分相似, 量级接近, 夏季低, 春、秋季高; 夏季退化草地和农田下垫面波恩比均小于或等于1。     

Regional surface fluxes from satellite-derived surface temperatures (AVHRR) and radiosonde profiles

Radiometric surface temperatures, derived from measurements by the AVHRR instrument aboard the NOAA-9 and the NOAA-11 polar orbiting satellites, were used in combination with wind velocity and temperature profiles measured by radiosondes, to calculate surface fluxes of sensible heat. The measurements were made during FIFE, the First ISLSCP (International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project) Field Experiment, in a hilly tall grass prairie area of northeastern Kansas. The method of calculation was based on turbulent similarity formulations for the atmospheric boundary layer. Good agreement (r = 0.7) was obtained with reference values of sensible heat flux, taken as arithmetic means of measurements with the Bowen ratio method at six ground stations. The values of evaporation (latent heat fluxes), derived from these sensible heat fluxes by means of the energy budget, were also in good agreement (r = 0.94) with the corresponding reference values from the ground stations.     

Heterogeneity-Induced Heat-Flux Patterns in the Convective Boundary Layer: Can they be Detected from Observations and is There a Blending Height?—A Large-Eddy Simulation Study for the LITFASS-2003 Experiment

An understanding of how the convective boundary layer (CBL) is mixed under heterogeneous surface forcing is crucial for the interpretation of area-averaged turbulence measurements. To determine the height and degree to which a complex heterogeneous surface affects the CBL, large-eddy simulations (LES) for two days of the LITFASS-2003 experiment representing two different wind regimes were undertaken. Spatially-lagged correlation analysis revealed the turbulent heat fluxes to be dependent on the prescribed surface flux pattern throughout the entire CBL including the entrainment layer. These findings prompted the question of whether signals induced by surface heterogeneity can be measured by airborne systems. To examine this question, an ensemble of virtual flights was conducted using LES, according to Helipod flight measurements made during LITFASS-2003. The resulting ensemble-averaged heat fluxes indicated a clear dependence on the underlying surface up to the top of the CBL. However, a large scatter between the flux measurements in different ensemble runs was observed, which was the result of insufficient sampling of the largest turbulent eddies. The random and systematic errors based on the integral length scale did not indicate such a large scatter. For the given flight leg lengths, at least 10–15 statistically independent flight measurements were necessary to give a significant estimate of heterogeneity-induced signals in the CBL. The need for ensemble averaging suggests that the observed blending of heterogeneity-induced signals in the CBL can be partly attributed to insufficient averaging.     

Turbulent fluxes over inhomogeneous landscape

Mesoscale surface turbulent fluxes over a complex terrain surrounded by oceans have been investigated using a 3-D numerical mesoscale model, under conditions with and without synoptic flows. The study indicated that under synoptically calm condition, the allocation and intensity of mesoscale surface turbulent fluxes (MSTFs) were greatly impacted by the thermally forced mesoscale circulation (TFMC) over mesoscale heterogeneous landscape. The max-imum values of sensible (Hs) and latent (LE) heat fluxes were located over the convergent zones and considerably im-pacted by the soil wetness (M), but did not depend strongly on the atmospheric background thermal stability (β0). The simulated results suggested that the sensible heat flux was closely proportional to the square of wind speed in the surface layer. By the action of synoptic flow, the allocation of LE was shifted to downwind, its intensity increased.