Canopy Architecture and Turbulence Structure in a Coniferous Forest

Synchronous sonic anemometric measurements at five heightswithin a mixed coniferous forest were used to test two different parameterisations ofcanopy architecture in the application of a second-order turbulence closure model. Inthe computation of the leaf drag area, the aerodynamic sheltering was replaced with anarchitectural sheltering, assumed to be analogous to the clumping index defined in radiativetransfer theory. Consequently, the ratio of leaf area density and sheltering factor was approximatedby the effective leaf area or the mean contact number, both obtained from the inversion of non-destructive optical measurements. The first parameter represents the equivalentrandomly dispersed leaf area in terms of shading, the second is the average number of leavesthat a straight line intercepts penetrating the canopy with a certain zenith angle. Theselection of this direction was determined by the analysis of the mean angle of the wind vectorduring sweep events. The drag coefficient values obtained from the inversion of themomentum flux equation, using the two proposed parameterisations, are in good agreement withvalues found in the literature. The predicted profiles of turbulence statistics reasonablymatch actual measurements, especially in the case of the mean contact numberparameterisation. The vertical profile of leaf drag area, obtained by forcing the turbulence modelto match the observed standard deviation of vertical velocity (_w), is intermediatebetween the two empirical ones. Finally, the proposed canopy parameterisations were appliedto a Lagrangian transport model to predict vertical profiles of air temperature, H₂O andCO₂ concentration.     

Particle Size Distribution and Gas-Particle Partition of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Helsinki Urban Area

Ambient concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were measured in Helsinki (Finland). Particle mass size distributions were obtained with a cascade impactor (12 stages) with glass fibre filters as substrates. Simultaneously with the impactor measurements, particulate and gaseous PAHs were collected on a quartz filter and XAD-2 adsorbent, respectively, for evaluation of gas-partition coefficients. Samples were analysed for PAHs by on-line coupled supercritical fluid extraction — liquid chromatography — gas chromatography — mass spectrometry. The impactor results showed that most of the PAHs in Helsinki urban area were concentrated in fine particles (<2.5 μm diameter) with unimode peak at about 1 μm. The results were comparable with the number distribution measured with a differential mobility particle sizer. Total amounts of PAHs (gas + particle) varied from 15 (acenaphthylene) to 1990 (fluorene) pg/m³. The PAHs lighter than 202 amu (pyrene and fluoranthene) were exclusively in gas phase, whereas those heavier than 202 amu were mostly associated with particles. A plot of the partition coefficients (logKp) versus the temperature dependent sub-cooled vapour pressures (logp _L ⁰ ) showed a gradient of −0.66, which deviated from equilibrium state (gradient = −1).     

Multifractal Characteristics of Intermittent Turbulence in the Urban Canopy Layer

The multifractality of energy and thermal dissipation of fully developed intermittent turbulence is investigated in the urban canopy layer under unstable conditions by the singularity spectrum for the fractal dimensions of sets of singularities characterizing multifractals. In order to obtain high-order moment properties of smallscale turbulent dissipation in the inertial range, an ultrasonic anemometer with a high sampling frequency of 100 Hz was used. The authors found that the turbulent signal could be singular everywhere. Moreover, the singular exponents of energy and thermal dissipation rates are most frequently encountered at around 0.2, which is significantly smaller than the singular exponents for a wind tunnel at a moderate Reynolds number. The evidence indicates a higher intermittency of turbulence in the urban canopy layer at a high Reynolds number, which is demonstrated by the data with high temporal resolution. Furthermore, the temperature field is more intermittent than the velocity field. In addition, a large amount of samples could be used for verification of the results.     

A Numerical Study of Turbulence Statistics and the Structure of a Spatially-Developing Boundary Layer Over a Realistic Urban Geometry

Sonic anemometer measurements are analyzed from two primary field programs and 12 supplementary sites to examine the behaviour of the turbulent heat flux near the surface with high wind speeds in the nocturnal boundary layer. On average, large downward heat flux is found for high wind speeds for most of the sites where some stratification is maintained in spite of relatively intense vertical mixing. The stratification for high wind speeds is found to be dependent on wind direction, suggesting the importance of warm-air advection, even for locally homogenous sites. Warm-air advection is also inferred from a large imbalance of the heat budget of the air for strong winds. Shortcomings of our study are noted.     

Scale Properties of Anisotropic and Isotropic Turbulence in the Urban Surface Layer

The scale properties of anisotropic and isotropic turbulence in the urban surface layer are investigated. A dimensionless anisotropic tensor is introduced and the turbulent tensor anisotropic coefficient, defined as C, where \(C = 3d_{3}\,+\,1 (d_{3}\) is the minimum eigenvalue of the tensor) is used to characterize the turbulence anisotropy or isotropy. Turbulence is isotropic when \(C \approx 1\), and anisotropic when \(C \ll 1\). Three-dimensional velocity data collected using a sonic anemometer are analyzed to obtain the anisotropic characteristics of atmospheric turbulence in the urban surface layer, and the tensor anisotropic coefficient of turbulent eddies at different spatial scales calculated. The analysis shows that C is strongly dependent on atmospheric stability \(\xi = (z-z_{\mathrm{d}})/L_{{\textit{MO}}}\), where z is the measurement height, \(z_{\mathrm{d}}\) is the displacement height, and \(L_{{\textit{MO}}}\) is the Obukhov length. The turbulence at a specific scale in unstable conditions (i.e., \(\xi < 0\)) is closer to isotropic than that at the same scale under stable conditions. The maximum isotropic scale of turbulence is determined based on the characteristics of the power spectrum in three directions. Turbulence does not behave isotropically when the eddy scale is greater than the maximum isotropic scale, whereas it is horizontally isotropic at relatively large scales. The maximum isotropic scale of turbulence is compared to the outer scale of temperature, which is obtained by fitting the temperature fluctuation spectrum using the von Karman turbulent model. The results show that the outer scale of temperature is greater than the maximum isotropic scale of turbulence.     

Observations Of The Turbulence Structure Within Two Stratocumulus-Topped, Marine Boundary Layers

Two situations observed during the second Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-2) are analysed from aircraft measurements in the broken stratocumulus (Sc)-topped marine boundary layer. The first one (26 June 1997), characterized by a non-polluted, oceanic air mass, presents a decoupling between the Sc layer (1400–1520 m) and the turbulent mixed layer, this latter extending from the surface up to 580 m. In contrast, the second case (9 July 1997), during which continental air had been advected over the experimental area, presents a well-coupled layer extending from the surface up to the top of the Sc layer(910 m). This coupling, uncommon in this area in the middle of the day, isrelated to the relative shallowness of the boundary layer. For both situations,it is shown that the turbulent fluxes can be computed with reasonably goodaccuracy (better than 10 %), taking into account both the random and thesystematic errors involved in the eddy-correlation technique. Estimationof random error is based on the computation of the integral scale of thecovariance, and systematic error is estimated from the parameterizationof Mann and Lenschow. The fluxes show that the buoyancy, as a sourceof turbulence, is due to latent heat flux rather than sensible heat flux,with values comparable to previous experiments in the Azores-Canariesbasin. In addition, we propose a method to analyse, for coupled situations,the relationship between the fractional cloudiness and the organization ofthe turbulent field below the clouds. This method is based on a conditionalsampling technique. It is shown that this organization cannot be deducedfrom the analysis of the velocity signal, which is dominated by turbulence.However, when the signals are conditionally sampled according to thepresence or absence of clouds, a weak cloud-related organization can beshown, and the cloud-related transports quantified; the values found areof the order of 10 % of the total transfers, i.e. the same order of magnitude asthe errors on the total flux computation. The method developed is thereforepromising, provided that the uncertainties can be reduced by analyzing a highamount of data.     

Turbulence in Continental Stratocumulus,Part I: External Forcings and Turbulence Structures

Comprehensive, ground-based observations from the US Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurements program Southern Great Plains site are used to study the variability of turbulence forcings and cloud-scale turbulence structures in a continental stratocumulus cloud. The turbulence observations are made from an upward facing cloud (35 GHz) Doppler radar. Cloud base and liquid water path are characterized using a lidar at the surface and a microwave radiometer. The turbulence characterizations are compared and contrasted with those observed in marine stratocumulus clouds. During the 16-h observation period used in this study the cloud-base and cloud-top heights evolve with time and changes in liquid water path observed by the radiometer are consistent with variations in cloud depth. Unlike marine stratocumulus clouds, a diurnal cycle of cloud thickness and liquid water path is not observed. The observed surface latent, sensible, and virtual sensible heat fluxes and the radiative fluxes exhibit a diurnal cycle with values increasing from sunrise to afternoon and decreasing afterwards. During the night, the sensible heat, virtual sensible heat and the net radiative fluxes at the surface are slightly negative. Solar radiative heating prevails in the cloud layer during the day and strong radiative cooling exists at cloud top even during the day. Unlike marine stratocumulus, surface heating described by the convective velocity scale \(W_\mathrm{s}^{*}\) and cloud-top cooling described by \(W_\mathrm{r}^{*}\) are both important in driving the in-cloud turbulence during the day, whereas cloud-top cooling is the exclusive contributor during the night. The combined \(W_\mathrm{s}^{*}\) and \(W_\mathrm{r}^{*}\) (the total velocity scale \(W_\mathrm{t}^{*})\) provides a useful way to track the evolution of the turbulence structure in the cloud. The variance of the radar-measured radial velocity, which is related to resolved turbulence, follows the diurnal cycle and is consistent with the total velocity scale \(W_\mathrm{t}^{*}\) variations. It is higher during the day and lower during the night, which is contrary to that in marine stratocumulus. The \(W_\mathrm{t}^{*}\) values are lowest around sunset when the radiative cooling is also small due to upper-level clouds observed above the low-level stratus. The vertical distribution of the variance results from the surface heating during the day and cloud-top cooling during the night. The squared spectrum width, which is related to turbulence structures within the radar sampling volume (unresolved turbulence) also follows the diurnal cycle. Its vertical distribution indicates that the unresolved turbulence more closely relates to the processes near cloud top. Turbulence in the cloud requires about an hour to respond to the external forcings of surface heating and cloud-top radiative cooling. Positive skewness prevails during the day and negative skewness prevails at night with a sharp transition around sunset. Resolved turbulence dominates near cloud base whereas unresolved turbulence dominates near cloud top. The turbulence characteristics and variability defined in this study can be used to evaluate the time evolution of turbulence structures in large eddy simulation forced by surface and cloud-top radiative forcings.     

Turbulence Structure in the Wake Region of a Meteorological Tower

A meteorological tower significantly modifies the air flow, the mean windspeed and wind direction as well as the turbulencestructure of the air. Suchchanges can be noticed in particular in the wake region of the tower.Measurementson the 200 m tower ofForschungszentrum Karlsruhewere carried outusing Solent sonic anemometers in the lee of the towerand cup anemometers on both sides.In the wake region, spectral energydensity is increased in the high-frequency range. Superposition of this disturbance spectrum on the undisturbedspectrum yields a `knee' in the resulting spectrum. In the case of low turbulence intensity with stable stratification,a plateau with a constant energy content is observed in front of the knee.This effect is caused by the new production of turbulence energy from the mean flow as well as by an energy transfer fromlarger to smaller vortices. Power spectra in strongly stable conditionsshow a more rapid decrease of intensity in the region where the inertialsubrange is expected.The relevant scales of wake turbulence are derived from the maximum of the disturbance spectrum.Locations of the high-frequency peak do not depend on atmospheric stability,but are controlled mainly by mean wind speed.Apart from the reduction of the mean wind speed, the spectra and cospectra exhibit a strong anisotropy for such cases.The results demonstrate the significant influence of a tower on turbulence spectra in the wake region.     

Turbulence and Air Exchange in a Two-Dimensional Urban Street Canyon Between Gable Roof Buildings

We experimentally investigate the effect of a typical building covering: the gable roof, on the flow and air exchange in urban canyons. In general, the morphology of the urban canopy is very varied and complex, depending on a large number of factors, such as building arrangement, or the morphology of the terrain. Therefore we focus on a simple, prototypal shape, the two-dimensional canyon, with the aim of elucidating some fundamental phenomena driving the street-canyon ventilation. Experiments are performed in a water channel, over an array of identical prismatic obstacles representing an idealized urban canopy. The aspect ratio, i.e. canyon-width to building-height ratio, ranges from 1 to 6. Gable roof buildings with 1:1 pitch are compared with flat roofed buildings. Velocity is measured using a particle-image-velocimetry technique with flow dynamics discussed in terms of mean flow and second- and third-order statistical moments of the velocity. The ventilation is interpreted by means of a simple well-mixed box model and the outflow rate and mean residence time are computed. Results show that gable roofs tend to delay the transition from the skimming-flow to the wake-interference regime and promote the development of a deeper and more turbulent roughness layer. The presence of a gable roof significantly increases the momentum flux, especially for high packing density. The air exchange is improved compared to the flat roof buildings, and the beneficial effect is more significant for narrow canyons. Accordingly, for unit aspect ratio gable roofs reduce the mean residence time by a factor of 0.37 compared to flat roofs, whereas the decrease is only by a factor of 0.9 at the largest aspect ratio. Data analysis indicates that, for flat roof buildings, the mean residence time increases by 30% when the aspect ratio is decreased from 6 to 2, whereas this parameter is only weakly dependent on aspect ratio in the case of gable roofs.     

Water-Channel Estimation of Eulerian and Lagrangian Time Scales of the Turbulence in Idealized Two-Dimensional Urban Canopies

Lagrangian and Eulerian statistics are obtained from a water-channel experiment of an idealized two-dimensional urban canopy flow in neutral conditions. The objective is to quantify the Eulerian \((T^{\mathrm{E}})\) and Lagrangian \((T^{\mathrm{L}})\) time scales of the turbulence above the canopy layer as well as to investigate their dependence on the aspect ratio of the canopy, AR, as the latter is the ratio of the width (W) to the height (H) of the canyon. Experiments are also conducted for the case of flat terrain, which can be thought of as equivalent to a classical one-directional shear flow. The values found for the Eulerian time scales on flat terrain are in agreement with previous numerical results found in the literature. It is found that both the streamwise and vertical components of the Lagrangian time scale, \(T_\mathrm{u}^\mathrm{L} \) and \(T_\mathrm{w}^\mathrm{L} \), follow Raupach’s linear law within the constant-flux layer. The same holds true for \(T_\mathrm{w}^\mathrm{L} \) in both the canopies analyzed \((AR= 1\) and \(AR= 2\)) and also for \(T_\mathrm{u}^\mathrm{L} \) when \(AR = 1\). In contrast, for \(AR = 2\), \(T_\mathrm{u}^\mathrm{L} \) follows Raupach’s law only above \(z=2H\). Below that level, \(T_\mathrm{u}^\mathrm{L} \) is nearly constant with height, showing at \(z=H\) a value approximately one order of magnitude greater than that found for \(AR = 1\). It is shown that the assumption usually adopted for flat terrain, that \(\beta =T^{\mathrm{L}}/T^{\mathrm{E}}\) is proportional to the inverse of the turbulence intensity, also holds true even for the canopy flow in the constant-flux layer. In particular, \(\gamma /i_\mathrm{u} \) fits well \(\beta _\mathrm{u} =T_\mathrm{u}^\mathrm{L} /T_\mathrm{u}^\mathrm{E} \) in both the configurations by choosing \(\gamma \) to be 0.35 (here, \(i_\mathrm{u} =\sigma _\mathrm{u} / \bar{u} \), where \(\bar{u} \) and \(\sigma _\mathrm{u} \) are the mean and the root-mean-square of the streamwise velocity component, respectively). On the other hand, \(\beta _\mathrm{w} =T_\mathrm{w}^\mathrm{L} /T_\mathrm{w}^\mathrm{E} \) follows approximately \(\gamma /i_\mathrm{w} =0.65/\left( {\sigma _\mathrm{w} /\bar{u} } \right) \) for \(z > 2H\), irrespective of the AR value. The second main objective is to estimate other parameters of interest in dispersion studies, such as the eddy diffusivity of momentum \((K_\mathrm{{T}})\) and the Kolmogorov constant \((C_0)\). It is found that \(C_0\) depends appreciably on the velocity component both for the flat terrain and canopy flow, even though for the latter case it is insensitive to AR values. In all the three experimental configurations analyzed here, \(K_\mathrm{{T}}\) shows an overall linear growth with height in agreement with the linear trend predicted by Prandtl’s theory.     

An Assessment of Turbulence Profiles in Rural and Urban Environments Using Local Measurements and Numerical Weather Prediction Results

Profiles of velocity variances based on observations in flat rural areas are well established, and are used for modelling turbulent dispersion in all types of regions including those of complex terrain and urban areas. Surface-based and balloon observations are used to assess the profiles in both rural and urban areas. It is shown that, with good meteorological inputs for the locality of friction velocity and surface sensible heat flux, the profiles are equally well suited to urban areas. The sensitivity of the profiles to the input meteorological data, in particular using numerical weather prediction (NWP) data, is discussed. This highlights the limitations of NWP data for dispersion modelling and stresses the importance of schemes for modelling urban meteorology.The British Crowns right to retain a non-exclusive royalty-free license in and to any copyright is acknowledged.     

The Characteristics of Turbulence Structure and Transfer over the Middle Area of the Tibetan Plateau

In this paper, turbulent data obtained from the Damxung site during the Secondary Tibetan Plateau Science Experiment (TIPEX) in 1998 are used to study the characteristics of the turbulent spectra, turbulence transport, and the dissipation rates of turbulent kinetic energy, temperature variance, and humidity variance in the middle area of the Tibetan Plateau. The turbulent spectra of wind velocity, potential temperature, and humidity satisfy the-2/3 power law in the high frequency range. Horizontal transportation of heat and water vapor is negligible compared with vertical transportation under strong unstable conditions, and as the stability parameter z/L increases (where z is the observational height, and L is the Monin Obukhov length), horizontal transportation becomes dominant under near-neutral, neutral, and stable conditions. The non-dimensional temperature and humidity variances are 20% less than the temperature and humidity gradient variances. These deficits appear to increase as the absolute stability parameter increases. Moreover, the effects of turbulence transportation and pressure variance exist throughout the entire stability region.     

廊坊市城市热岛效应的昼夜变化特征分析

利用2005年9月～2008年8月廊坊市区域加密自动站逐小时气温资料,采用城、郊气温对比法研究了廊坊城市热岛效应,结果表明:廊坊城市热岛强度夜间大于白天,但变化幅度白天大于夜间,但在四季不同时段也存在城市冷岛现象.不同气象条件下,廊坊城市热岛强度及变化存在明显差异,晴朗无风时城市平均热岛强度最大,平均强度达1.25℃,阴雨天气条件下城市平均热岛强度最小,平均强度仅有0.10℃.     

Measurements of Turbulence and Dispersion in Three Idealized Urban Canopies with Different Aspect Ratios and Comparisons with a Gaussian Plume Model

Water-tunnel measurements of velocity, turbulence and scalar concentration for three model urban canopies with aspect ratios A _r of building height-to-width of 0.25, 1 and 3 are presented. The measurements for the canopies with A _r = 1 and 3 are new, while the measurements for A _r = 0.25 were previously published. A passive scalar was continuously released from a near-ground point source, and the concentration was measured at several distances from the source and at different heights above the ground. Plume spreads, concentration and distance from the source were non-dimensionalized using length, time and velocity scales reflecting the geometry of the buildings. The scaling collapses the data for all aspect ratios and is valid when the vertical extent of the plume is smaller than the canopy height. The observed plume spreads are compared with analytical relations, which predict linear growth in both transverse and vertical directions. The observed mean concentration is compared with a Gaussian dispersion model that predicts a ?2 power-law decay with distance from the source.