Roughness lengths for temperature and momentum over heterogeneous terrain

Measurements are presented describing the behaviour of roughness lengths for momentum and temperature for heterogeneous terrain of low fractional rough cover. The momentum roughness lengths were found to be up to several orders of magnitude larger than that for temperature, behaviour which is characteristic of a bluff-rough type of surface and which is consistent with previous experimental and theoretical studies. This contrasts with observations over uniform, vegetated surfaces, which show only an order-of-magnitude increase of momentum roughness length over that for temperature.     

非均匀地表类型有效粗糙度的计算和特征分析

利用湍流通量相等原理和ECMWF的总体湍流输送系数参数化方案,研究了气候数值模式中非均匀地表类型的有效粗糙度计算问题。结果表明,当存在两种地表类型且粗糙变率为2.3时,有效粗糙度比通常采用的对数加权平均值大40％左右,相应的总体湍流输送系数大16％左右,光滑地表类型和粗糙地表类型所占面积百分比分别为60％和40％时,有效粗糙度及相应的总体湍流输送系数和相应的对数加权平均值之差最大,并且有效粗糙度对大气层结不敏感,因而在气候模式中有实用价值。     

Surface Heterogeneity Effects on Regional-Scale Fluxes in the Stable Boundary Layer: Aerodynamic Roughness Length Transitions

The effects of abrupt streamwise transitions of the aerodynamic roughness length ( $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o ) on the stable atmospheric boundary layer are evaluated using a series of large-eddy simulations based on the first Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Atmospheric Boundary Layer intercomparison study (GABLS1). Four $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o values spanning three orders of magnitude are used to create all possible binary distributions with each arranged into patches of characteristic length scales equal to roughly one-half, one, and two times the equivalent homogeneous boundary-layer height. The impact of the heterogeneity on mean profiles of wind speed and temperature, on surface fluxes of heat and momentum, and on internal boundary-layer dynamics are considered. It is found that $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o transitions do not significantly alter the functional relationship between the average surface fluxes and the mean profiles of wind speed and potential temperature. Although this suggests that bulk similarity theory is applicable for modelling the stable boundary layer over $z_\mathrm{o}$ z o heterogeneity, effective surface parameters must still be specified. Existing models that solve for effective roughness lengths of momentum and heat are evaluated and compared to values derived from the simulation data. The existing models are unable to accurately reproduce both the values of the effective aerodynamic roughness lengths and their trends as functions of patch length scale and stability. A new model for the effective aerodynamic roughness length is developed to exploit the benefits of the other models tested. It accurately accounts for the effects of the heterogeneity and stratification on the blending height and effective aerodynamic roughness length. The new model provides improved average surface fluxes when used with bulk similarity.     

Spatial variability of turbulent fluxes and roughness lengths in HAPEX-MOBILHY

Surface-based and aircraft measured fluxes over the heterogeneous surface in HAPEX-MOBILHY are analyzed for the ten flight days when cloud cover above the boundary layer was minimal. The fair-weather climatology of the spatial variation of surface fluxes is estimated to provide an assessment of the generality of previous case studies appearing in the literature. For the 10-day averages, greater heating over the forest generates a forest breeze which leads to rising motion and a modest increase of boundary-layer cloud cover at the forest edge. The exchange coefficients and effective roughness lengths are computed for local averages (15 km scale) and for regional averages (100 km scale) intended to represent a range of grid sizes in numerical models of the atmosphere. The effective roughness length for momentum over the mixed agricultural region for both scales is on the order of 1 m, apparently due to bluff roughness effects associated with scattered trees, edges of small woods and other obstacles. This roughness length value is an order of magnitude larger than values used in numerical models for the same region, which are based on the dominant vegetation type. The spatially varying effective roughness length for heat is computed for use in those models which use surface radiation temperature to estimate surface heat flux. The effective roughness lengths for heat are found to be smaller than those typically used in numerical models of the atmosphere.     

On the Parameterisation of the Effective Roughness Length for Momentum Transfer over Heterogeneous Terrain

We develop a parameterisation for the effective roughness length of terrain that consists of a repeating sequence of patches, in which each patch is composed of strips of two roughness types. A numerical model with second-order closure in the turbulent stress is developed and used to show that: (i) the normalised Reynolds stress develops as a self-similar profile; (ii) the mixing-length parameterisation is a good first-order approximation to the Reynolds stress. These findings are used to characterise the blending layer, where the stress adjusts smoothly from its local surface value to its effective value aloft. Previous studies have assumed that this adjustment occurs abruptly at a single level, often called the blending height. The blending layer is shown to be characterised by height scales that arise naturally in linear models of surface layer flow over roughness changes, and calculations with the numerical model show that these height scales remain appropriate in the nonlinear regime. This concept of the blending layer allows the development of a new parameterisation of the effective roughness length, which gives values for the effective roughness length that are shown to compare well with both atmospheric measurements and values determined from the second-order model.     

Observations and parametrization of momentum transfer in heterogeneous terrain consisting of regularly spaced obstacles

Tethered balloon data collected over a heterogeneous, semi-rural area of southern England are presented. The terrain within which the observations were taken is dominated by regularly spaced bluff obstacles that form the boundaries to grass fields. The data are compared with previous surface data to assess how representative these fixed-point measurements are of area-averaged values. It is found that there is a vertical height above which the flow approximates to being homogeneous and observations made above it are representative of the area average. The effective roughness length for momentum is then compared with that derived from a model describing the drag partition around isolated obstacles that are either non-porous or porous to the incident flow. It is shown that the method chosen to partition the drag is of the right order to produce reasonable predictions of the effective roughness length for different roughness densities.     

Determination of Roughness Lengths for Heat and Momentum Over Boreal Forests

The roughness length for momentum (z_0m), zero-plane displacementheight (d), and roughness length for heat (z_0h) are importantparameters used to estimate land-atmosphere energy exchange. Although many different approaches have been developed to parameterizemomentum and heat transfer, existing parameterizations generally utilizehighly simplified representations of vegetation structure. Further, a mismatch exists between the treatments used for momentum and heat exchange and those used for radiative energy exchanges. In this paper, parameterizations are developed to estimate z_0m, d, and z_0h for forested regimes using information related to tree crown density and structure. The parameterizations provide realistic representationfor the vertical distribution of foliage within canopies, and include explicit treatment for the effects of the canopy roughness sublayer and leaf drag on momentum exchange. The proposed parameterizationsare able to realistically account for site-to-site differences in roughness lengths that arise from canopy structural properties.Comparisons between model predictions and field measurements show good agreement, suggesting that the proposed parameterizations capture the most important factors influencing turbulent exchange of momentumand heat over forests.     

Diurnal Variations of Thermal Roughness Height over a Grassland

The thermal roughness height associated with the surface radiation temperature has been previously found to vary between different surface types. This study finds that the thermal roughness height varies diurnally even over a homogeneous senescent grassland. The corresponding roughness length for momentum is relatively constant.Both the aerodynamic temperature and the surface radiation temperature are found to be closely related to the air temperature in the middle of the grass canopy. However, the aerodynamic temperature is strongly influenced by the horizontally integrated heat transfer, while the surface radiation temperature represents the integrated thermal emission through the grass depth within the field of view of the radiometer. The aerodynamic temperature is less sensitive to variations and measurement errors in sensible heat flux, wind speed, and air temperature than the thermal roughness height. We find that formulating the aerodynamic temperature in terms of the surface radiation temperature is better posed for use in the bulk formula than using the surface radiation temperature directly and adjusting the thermal roughness length.     

Optimized Computation of Transfer Coefficients in Surface Layer with Different Momentum and Heat Roughness Lengths

A new method for computing the surface transfer coefficients is proposed, based on state-of-the-art empirical flux-profile relationships. The influence of the roughness length ratio is first demonstrated with the classical iterative calculation method. Then a non-iterative algorithm is developed, taking into account the difference between momentum and heat roughness lengths.The new method is validated by comparison with the reference iterative computation. The large gain-in computer processing time (CPU) time gain for the calculation of surface fluxes in Eulerian grid models is finally assessed.     

Bulk Transfer Relations for the Roughness Sublayer

In the roughness sublayer (RSL), Monin–Obukhov surface layer similarity theory fails. This is problematic for atmospheric modelling applications over domains that include rough terrain such as forests or cities, since in these situations numerical models often have the lowest model level located within the RSL. Based on empirical RSL profile functions for momentum and scalar quantities, and scaling the height with the RSL height z _*, we derive a simple bulk transfer relation that accounts for RSL effects. To verify the validity of our approach, these relations are employed together with wind speed and temperature profiles measured over boreal forest during the BOREAS experimental campaign to estimate momentum and heat fluxes. It is demonstrated that, when compared with observed flux values, the inclusion of RSL effects in the transfer relations yields a considerable improvement in the estimated fluxes.     

Comments and further analysis on effective roughness lengths for use in numerical three-dimensional models

Simple calculations of the apparent roughness length for the areally averaged flow over flat but heterogeneous terrain are presented. These results could be used to specify effective roughness lengths for use in large-scale models. Some of our conclusions differ significantly from those reached recently by André and Blondin (1986).     

Observations of Boundary-Layer Wind-Tunnel Flow over Isolated Ridges of Varying Steepness and Roughness

Boundary-layer wind-tunnel flow is measured over isolated ridges of varyingsteepness and roughness. The steepness/roughness parameter space is chosento produce flows that range from fully attached to strongly separated. Measurementsshow that maximum speedup at the hill crest is significantly lower than predictedby linear theory and that recovery in the lee of the hill is much slower for stronglyseparated flow over steep terrain. The measurements also show that behaviour ofthe mean and turbulent components of the flow on the downwind side of the ridgeis fundamentally different between separated and non-separated flows. This suggeststhe dominance of much increased turbulence time and length scales in the lee of thehill in association with a production mechanism that scales with the hill length ratherthan the proximity to the surface as on the windward side of the hill crest.     

城市表面粗糙度长度的确定

讨论了动量粗糙度长度与热量和水汽等标量粗糙度长度在形式上和物理本质上的不同，以及造成这些不同的原因和条件，分析了决定动量粗糙度的几种因素，并给出了确定动量粗糙度长度的简化关系式，并且根据城市冠层与其上惯性次层能量和动量守衡的原因，建立了热量和水汽粗糙度与动量粗糙度之间的联系，得到了确定热量和水汽粗糙度长度的简化关系式，最后，通过数值试验，表明了动量粗糙度和标量粗糙度变化特征以及对一些主要参数的敏感程度，以及动量粗糙度与标量粗糙度的动态关系。     

Effective Roughness Calculated from Satellite-Derived Land Cover Maps and Hedge-Information used in a Weather Forecasting Model

In numerical weather prediction, climate and hydrologicalmodelling, the grid cell size is typically larger than the horizontal length scales of variations in aerodynamicroughness, surface temperature and surface humidity. These local land cover variations give rise to sub-gridscale surface flux differences. Especially the roughness variations can give a significantly differentvalue between the equilibrium roughness in each of the patches as compared to the aggregated roughness value,the so-called effective roughness, for the grid cell. The effective roughness is a quantity that secures thephysics to be well-described in any large-scale model. A method of aggregating the roughness step changesin arbitrary real terrain has been applied in flat terrain (Denmark) where sub-grid scale vegetation-drivenroughness variations are a dominant characteristic of the landscape. The aggregation model is a physicaltwo-dimensional atmospheric flow model in the horizontal domain based on a linearized version of theNavier Stoke equation. The equations are solved by the Fast Fourier Transformation technique, hence the codeis very fast. The new effective roughness maps have been used in the HIgh Resolution Limited Area Model(HIRLAM) weather forecasting model and the weather prediction results are compared for a number of casesto synoptic and other observations with improved agreement above the predictions based on currentstandard input. Typical seasonal springtime bias on forecasted winds over land of +0.5 m s^-1 and-0.2 m s^-1 in coastal areas is reduced by use of the effective roughness maps.     

A Parameterisation of the Effective Roughness Length over Inhomogeneous, Flat Terrain

A parameterisation ofthe effective roughness length is presented for an arbitrary givenroughness distribution z₀(x,y) over flat terrainat neutral stratification.Beyond pure averaging, it takes into account the spatial structure of the distribution, especially the influence of length scales, and inflow direction.To allow for interactions between different rough areas, Boussinesq-approximated equations with a turbulence closure of first order are considered and solved using perturbation theory.As a result, the logarithm of the effective roughness length isrepresented as a sum over the product of the Fourier transformation of log z₀ and a so-called dynamic function, which describesthe response of the flow field to a single wavelength of z₀.Although the numerical expenditure is larger than for simple averaging formulae,this method could be used by large-scale models to calculateeffective roughness lengths in every close-to-surface grid cell.     

半干旱区榆中地表粗糙度年变化及影响机理

利用2006年6月—2010年12月兰州大学半干旱气候与环境观测站 (SACOL) 观测资料,分析了黄土高原自然植被下垫面榆中地表粗糙度时间变化特征,考虑到地形、植被物理特征以及降水和热力条件的影响,分析了东南风向和西北风向粗糙度年变化规律及其影响机理,并分别给出这两个风向归一化粗糙度与时间的拟合关系式。研究发现:对于非均一下垫面,由于地形起伏和下垫面植被差别造成的不同风向粗糙度差异显著。选取东南风向和西北风向,这两个风向的地表粗糙度无论是量级还是年变化特征都有很大差别,且由于地形和植被的差别,东南风向粗糙度年变化趋势与稳定度年变化趋势一致,粗糙度与稳定度存在一定相关关系,而西北风向粗糙度年变化趋势与降水量年变化趋势一致,粗糙度与降水量相关性较好。     

标量粗糙度对地气交换的影响

为提高地-气间感热和潜热通量的精度,利用Garratt的公式将标量粗糙度Z0T和Z0q引入BATS,对六种不同的植被作对比试验。结果表明:标量粗糙度Z0T和Z0q均远远小于动量粗糙度Z0,约相差3～10个数量级不等。晴天状况下,农作物区Z0/Z0T最小,约103,阔叶林最大,达1010;雨天状况下,各种植被间标量粗糙度的差异减小了。计算的地表温度、感热通量、潜热通量较原BATS的更为合理。     

The sensitivity of winter evaporation to the formulation of aerodynamic resistance in the ECMWF model

In atmospheric models, the roughness length for momentum, heat and moisture are often taken equal, and tuned to the momentum budget problem. In this paper, it is shown that the roughness lengths have considerable impact on the evaporation in winter. One-column simulations of the land-surface scheme are driven with a long time series of observations for Cabauw in The Netherlands. It is shown that with the operational roughness lengths for this location (as in use at ECMWF in May 1993), evaporation in January, February and March is overestimated by more than a factor 2. More realistic parameters, as documented for this site, virtually eliminate the error. This study shows the importance of the surface roughness lengths in determining evaporation from wet surfaces. It also illustrates the strength of long observational time series in identifying model deficiencies.     

Representative roughness parameters for homogeneous terrain

Objective requirements are drawn up for experimental determination of the roughness of homogeneous terrain, particularly with respect to matching of the observation array to a terrain situation with given fetch, blending height and displacement length. Some fifty well-documented published experiments over various surfaces, ranging from mobile surfaces (sea, or moving sand or snow) to forests and towns, are shown to meet these criteria and are compiled. It is shown that most presently popular terrain reviews underestimate actual terrain roughness lengths by about a factor two.     

A modified parameterization of flux-profile relationships in the surface layer using different roughness length values for heat and momentum

The surface-layer flux-profile formulae of Louis (1979), used in many atmospheric models, are modified in a simple way to allow for different values of the roughness lengths for heat and momentum. The modified set of formulae simplifies the calculation of surface-layer fluxes over most natural land surfaces, where the roughness length for momentum can be almost an order of magnitude greater than that for heat.