Impact of Eddy Characteristics on Turbulent Heat and Momentum Fluxes in the Urban Roughness Sublayer

Eddy-covariance observations above the densely built-up Centre of Nanjing were made from December 2011 to August 2012. Separate eddy-covariance systems installed at two levels on a 36-m tower located on a rooftop were operated simultaneously, and observations grouped into two sectors (A, B) according to the prevalent wind directions. For sector A, where the nearby buildings are all below the lower measurement level, the sensible heat and momentum fluxes are generally greater at the upper level. For sector B, where several high-rise buildings are located upwind, the sensible heat and momentum fluxes at the upper level are close to those at the lower level. The analysis shows that the turbulent eddy characteristics differ between the two wind sectors, leading to a different behaviour of turbulent exchange between the two levels. A hypothesis is proposed that addresses the vertical variation of turbulent fluxes in the urban roughness sublayer (RSL). For sector A, the buildings block the flow, change the trajectory of scalars, and distort the footprint of scalar fluxes; this ‘blocking effect’ is believed to lead to a smaller sensible heat flux above the canopy layer. Such an effect should decrease with height in the RSL, explaining the increase of the observed turbulent heat flux with height. In addition, the presence of non-uniform building heights adversely affects turbulence organization around the canopy top, and likely elevates the inflection point of the mean flow to a higher elevation close to the upper measurement level, where larger shear results in a larger momentum flux. For sector B, wake effects from the nearby high-rise buildings strongly reduce turbulence organization at higher elevations, leading to similar sensible heat and momentum fluxes at both measurement levels.