50 Years of the Monin–Obukhov Similarity Theory

In weak wind stable conditions, eddy-correlation fluxes calculated using conventional averaging times of 5 min or longer to define the perturbations are severely contaminated by poorly sampled mesoscale motions. A method is developed to identify the averaging time for each individual data record that captures the turbulence while excluding most of the mesoscale motions. The method is based on multiresolution decomposition of the heat flux, and provides an objective procedure for selecting the averaging time for calculating eddy-correlation fluxes. Eddy-correlation data collected in weak turbulence conditions over grass, snow, a pine forest and the ocean are used to demonstrate the approach.When the small-scale turbulence and mesoscale motions are clearly separated by a gap region in the heat flux cospectra, the variable window width reduces the influence of nonstationarity by more effectively filtering out mesoscale motions compared to traditional methods using constant averaging time. For records where turbulence and mesoscale motions overlap in scale, the method is not well posed, although such records occur infrequently for our datasets. These ambiguous cases correspond to significant nonstationarity at scales that overlap with turbulence scales. The improved turbulence fluxes calculated with the proposed method are the appropriate fluxes for evaluating flux-gradient relationships and Monin–Obukov similarity theory for developing improved model parameterizations of turbulence for weakly turbulent flows