Observations of nitric oxide fluxes over grass

Eddy correlation measurements of NO vertical flux were made periodically from October 1983 through June 1984 at a height of eight meters above grass in northeastern Illinois, U.S.A. From 207 data points, each representing a 25 min average, 19 daytime cases and 8 nighttime cases were selected on the basis of steady, nonadvective atmospheric conditions. Each case was represented by a set of data constituting a 3 to 5 hr average. Concentrations of O₃, NO, and NO _y (from which NO₂ was inferred) and local atmospheric and surface conditions also were measured, to provide the information necessary to assess the relative importance of surface deposition, surface emission, and air chemistry on the observed NO flux. On the basis of a linear regression analysis applied with independent variables representing physical, chemical, and biological processes, surface uptake of NO was very small for data primarily collected in the daytime during spring, and measured deposition velocities at a height of 8 m were very small, much smaller than expected for NO₂. For the same time period, the surface emission rates of elemental nitrogen in NO were in the range of 1.4 to 4.2 ng m^-2 s^-1 for moist, unsaturated soils at temperatures near 15° C. These emissions were partially masked in the measured fluxes by rapid in-air chemical reactions involving O₃ and NO₂. The effects of rapid in-air chemical reactions involving O₃ were to decrease the (upward) flux of NO with height. While the information collected at night was too limited to strongly support hypotheses concerning emissions and deposition, a pathway for NO production by reactions involving NO₃ and related compounds was indicated. For daytime conditions, this production pathway is not evident, probably because of the relatively strong effects of photochemical reactions involving NO, NO₂, and O₃.Formerly with the Chemical Technology Division of Argonne National Laboratory and currently affiliated with Bio-Rad Laboratories, Digilab Division, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.     

The bulk aerodynamic formulation over heterogeneous surfaces

This interpretative literature survey examines problems with application of the bulk aerodynamic method to spatially averaged fluxes over heterogeneous surfaces. This task is approached by tying together concepts from a diverse range of recent studies on subgrid parameterization, the roughness sublayer, the roll of large inactive boundary-layer eddies, internal boundary-layer growth, the equilibrium sublayer, footprint theory and the blending height. Although these concepts are not completely compatible, qualitative scaling arguments based on these concepts lead to a tentative unified picture of the qualitative influence of surface heterogeneity for a wide spectrum of spatial scales.Generalization of the velocity scale is considered to account for nonvanishing heat and moisture fluxes in the limit of vanishing time-averaged wind speed and to account for the influence of subgrid mesoscale motions on the grid-averaged turbulent flux. The bulk aerodynamic relationship for the heat flux usually employs the surface radiation temperature or, equivalently, the temperature from the modelled surface energy budget. The corresponding thermal roughness length is quite variable and its dependence on available parameters is predictable only in special cases.An effective transfer coefficient to relate the spatially averaged surface fluxes to spatially averaged air-ground differences of temperature and other scalars can be most clearly defined when the blending height occurs below the reference level (observational level or first model level). This condition is satisfied only for surface heterogeneity occurring over horizontal scales up to a few times the boundary-layer depth, depending on the stability and height of the reference level. For surface heterogeneity on larger scales (small mesoscale), an effective transfer coefficient for the spatially averaged flow must be defined, for which predictive schemes are unavailable. For surface variations on large mesoscales, homogeneous subareas may be maintained where traditional similarity theory is locally applicable. Surface variations on these scales may generate thermally-driven mesoscale motions.     

Influence of heterogeneous land surfaces on surface energy and mass fluxes

Summary Land-surface heterogeneity affects surface energy fluxes. The magnitudes of selected land-surface influences are quantified by comparing observations with model simulations of the FIFE (First ISLSCP Field Experiment) domain. Several plausible heterogeneous and homogeneous initial and boundary conditions are examined, although soilmoisture variability is emphasized. It turns out that simple spatial averages of surface variation produced biased flux values. Simulated maximum latent-heat fluxes were approximately 30 to 40 W m^–2 higher, and air temperatures 0.4 °C lower (at noon), when computations were initialized with spatially averaged soil-moisture and leaf-area-index fields. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) height and turbulent exchanges were lower as well. It additionally was observed that (largely due to the nonlinear relationship between initial soil-moisture availability and the evapotranspiration rate), real latent-heat flux can be substantially less than simulated latent-heat flux using models initialized with spatially averaged soil-moisture fields. Differences between real and simulated fluxes also vary with the resolution at which real soil-moisture heterogeneity is discretized.With 8 Figures     

Analysis of surface energy balance closure over heterogeneous surfaces

Surface energy balance closure has been examined using eddy covariance measurements and other observations at one industrial and three agricultural sites near the Nakdong River during daytime. Energy balance closure was evaluated by calculating the long-term averaged energy balance ratio (EBR), the ratio of turbulent energy fluxes to available energy, and the statistical regression of turbulent energy fluxes against available energy using half-hourly data. The EBR of all sites ranges from 0.46 to 0.83 while the coefficient of determination (R ²) ranges from 0.37 to 0.77. The energy balance closure was relatively poor compared to homogeneous sites, indicating the influence of surface heterogeneity. Unmeasured heat storage terms also seem to play a role in the surface energy budget at the industrial and irrigated sites. The energy balance closure was better in conditions of high wind speed, low downward short wave radiation, and high friction velocity, which suggests the role of heat storage term and surface heterogeneity in surface energy balance at these sites. Spectrum analysis shows a sharp roll-off at the low frequency in co-spectrum, which indicates that low-frequency motions do not significantly contribute to turbulent fluxes. Both the spectra and cospectra in unstable conditions show a broad peak indicating the influence of multiple sizes of large eddies over heterogeneous sites. Most of ogive curves for the kinematic latent and sensible heat fluxes reach an asymptote within 30 minutes regardless of the EBR value, indicating that low frequency motion is not a main factor for energy imbalance. However, stationary eddies due to landscape heterogeneity still remains as a possible cause for energy imbalance.     

Acoustic tomography and conventional meteorological measurements over heterogeneous surfaces

Summary Conventional micro-meteorological measuring methods are not particularly suitable for the investigation of the energy exchange under heterogeneous surface conditions. To consider the influence of the different surface properties, area-covered and spatially averaged meteorological measurements in combination with highly resolved simulations are necessary. In this context, the method of acoustic travel time tomography is introduced to provide information about the horizontal temperature and wind field.To check the applicability of the tomographic method for this problem and to provide data for the model initialisation a field experiment was carried out.The tomographic system and conventional meteorological equipment were utilised inside the investigation area with an extension of several hundred meters (300×700m²), which was arranged over areas with different surface properties: grassland and bare soil.The results of the field experiment show that differences between the measuring systems (in-situ and remote sensing) exist and the heterogeneity of the underlying surface is visible in the near surface temperature and wind field at a scale, which can be resolved with highly resolved numerical models. Depending on the incoming solar radiation and the local advection regional distinctions in the air temperature and wind field as well as in the vertical sensible heat fluxes were observed.The investigations demonstrate that the sensitivity of the acoustic tomography is sufficient to verify gradients in the meteorological fields even when the horizontal differences in sensible heat flux are small.     

LLM – a nonhydrostatic model applied to high-resolving simulations of turbulent fluxes over heterogeneous terrain

Summary ?At the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) an internal project named LITFASS was running to determine the representative turbulent fluxes of heat and momentum over heterogeneous land surfaces by observation and simulation. The project took advantage of the infrastructure of the Research Division at the DWD, where model research capacity is combined with the measurements made at and around the Meteorological Observatory Lindenberg. The paper describes the simulation component of the LITFASS-project. It consists of a high-resolving model, derived from the new operational non-hydrostatic, compressible Lokal-Modell (LM), which is denoted LLM (LITFASS-Lokal-Modell). The integration area covers the lower atmosphere in the vertical up to 3000 m with 39 model layers. The horizontal size of the integration area with 145 × 145 grid points (horizontal mesh width Δs = 96.5 m) corresponds to a typical grid box of a meso-scale model. The LLM has to operate under real meteorological conditions. Therefore, the LLM is driven by time-dependent measured vertical profiles of wind, temperature and humidity and surface-based measurements (of radiation, precipitation, soil properties) supported by satellite information. The profiles are available for a great variety of weather situations occurring during the simulation period (1–20 June 1998). First model results from extended 24 hour-integrations against different kinds of measurements are discussed. They reveal the LLM to become a promising validation instrument, from which a systematic, sustainable validation system can be established beyond LITFASS for improving parameterization schemes in the NWP models of the DWD. Received July 18, 2001; revised March 15, 2002; accepted May 30, 2002     

Average fluxes from heterogeneous vegetated regions

Using a surface-layer model, fluxes of heat and momentum have been calculated for flat regions with regularly spaced step changes in surface roughness and stomatal resistance. The distance between successive step changes is limited to 10 km in order to fill the gap between micro-meteorological measurements and meso-scale models. A single-layer big leaf model of the vegetation is compared with a multi-layer model to assess the performance of the former in the determination of surface fluxes in heterogeneous terrain.The sub-models of vegetation and atmosphere are mainly based on well-known theory. However, a modification of the mixing-length closure of atmospheric exchange is included to achieve a more realistic calculation of fluxes near step changes at the surface. Measurements, presented in the literature, are used to determine the mixing-length parameters and to validate the calculated fluxes downwind of a change in vegetation cover.The single-layer model, well validated for homogeneous surfaces, underestimates the effects of local advection upon the surface fluxes as this model neglects air flow across the edges of tall vegetation. Using the multi-layer model, local advection results in an increase of up to 50% in regional momentum flux and smaller changes in regional evaporation. Even widely spaced heterogeneities appear to influence regional fluxes.     

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     

Atmospheric turbulent fluxes over snow

On March 26, 1971, eddy fluxes of momentum, sensible heat and water vapour were measured over Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, U.S.A., which was covered by an extensive snowfall. An evaporation rate of about 0.7mm day^–1 (2.2 mW cm^–2) was detected. Wind speeds were light and the atmosphere near the surface was highly stable. In these conditions, the average sensible heat transfer and Reynolds stress were -0.9 mW cm^–2 and 0.10 dyn cm^–2, respectively. Comparison with measured gradients of wind speed, temperature and humidity yield a drag coefficient of about 0.54 × 10^–3, and bulk transfer coefficients for sensible and latent heat of 0.41 × 10^–3 and 0.78 × 10^–3, respectively, applied to 10-m data. When corrected for the effect of atmospheric stability, these three coefficients become (in the same order) 1.2 × 10^–3, 0.9 × 10^–3 and 2.5 × 10^–3. The errors in these estimates are such that the drag coefficient is not significantly different from that corresponding to an aerodynamically smooth surface, while the heat coefficients are similar to those normally applied over liquid water surfaces.     

Estimation of turbulent sensible heat and momentum fluxes over a heterogeneous urban area using a large aperture scintillometer

The accurate determination of surface-layer turbulent fluxes over urban areas is critical to understanding urban boundary layer (UBL) evolution. In this study, a remote-sensing technique using a large aperture scintillometer (LAS) was investigated to estimate surface-layer turbulent fluxes over a highly heterogeneous urban area. The LAS system, with an optical path length of 2.1 km, was deployed in an urban area characterized by a complicated land-use mix (residential houses, water body, bare ground, etc.). The turbulent sensible heat (Q H) and momentum fluxes (τ) were estimated from the scintillation measurements obtained from the LAS system during the cold season. Three-dimensional LAS footprint modeling was introduced to identify the source areas ("footprint") of the estimated turbulent fluxes. The analysis results showed that the LAS-derived turbulent fluxes for the highly heterogeneous urban area revealed reasonable temporal variation during daytime on clear days, in comparison to the land-surface process-resolving numerical modeling. A series of sensitivity tests indicated that the overall uncertainty in the LAS-derived daytime Q H was within 20%-30% in terms of the influence of input parameters and the non-dimensional similarity function for the temperature structure function parameter, while the estimation errors in τ were less sensitive to the factors of influence, except aerodynamic roughness length. The 3D LAS footprint modeling characterized the source areas of the LAS-derived turbulent fluxes in the heterogeneous urban area, revealing that the representative spatial scales of the LAS system deployed with the 2.1 km optical path distance ranged from 0.2 to 2 km2 (a "micro-α scale"), depending on local meteorological conditions.     

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.     

Evaluation of turbulent fluxes over Maitri,Antarctica

Turbulent fluxes have been evaluated for clear sunny days over the Indian Antarctic station, Maitri, using the basic meteorological data recorded at four levels of a 28 m tower. The data are supplemented with radiation data. The surface layer over Maitri remains thermally stratified during the hours of minimum solar insolation, the so-called nighttime period. The surface winds during this period are generally very strong resulting in high momentum fluxes. In particular, for high winds (>12 m s^–1), the temperature gradient is found to be less positive than for moderate winds (4 to 7 m s^–1). Solar insolation provided the daytime heating necessary for the diurnal variation of atmospheric stability, and hence, for the turbulent fluxes. Thus, on clear days daytime conditions are marked by upward transport of heat with reduced momentum flux, while stable nighttime conditions are marked by a downward heat flux with increased momentum fluxes.     

Evaluation of radiative fluxes over the north Indian Ocean

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Radiative fluxes are a key component of the surface heat budget of the oceans. Yet, observations over oceanic region are sparse due to the complexity of...     

Comparative measurements of the energy fluxes over a pine forest

During the summer of 1974, simultaneous heat flux measurements were made over a pine forest in three ways:

1. Using the Bowen ratio - Energy Budget technique, with the Bowen ratio estimated from temperature and humidity profiles measured with two pairs of wet-and dry-bulb thermometers at six levels.
2. Using the Bowen ratio - Energy Budget technique, with the Bowen ratio estimated from temperature and humidity measurements using pairs of wet-and dry-bulb thermometers mechanically interchanged every ten minutes.
3. Using the Eddy Correlation - Energy Budget technique, with a direct measurement of the sensible heat flux made by a simple eddy correlation apparatus.

Methods (b) and (c) are shown to give similar results apart from a systematic difference of about 25% in the measured sensible heat flux. This corresponds to an underestimate of the sensible heat flux by the eddy correlation apparatus. Although sometimes consistent with the other two methods, on occasions method (a) gave results which were significantly different from both (b) and (c). When differences occurred, they tended to be systematic and persistent over individual days; but they could change magnitude and sign if the particular sensors used at each level in the profile were rearranged. The experimental program used to collect these and previous data involved the rearrangement of sensors on a regular (two day) time scale. It is shown that, when averaged over several such rearrangements, method (a) produces median values of surface resistance which are more in keeping with those produced by the other methods. This is taken to imply that data previously gathered in this way can be used to produce physically reasonable results providing they are averaged over several days. On the basis of the results presented, recommendations are made on future experimental work in forest micrometeorology.     

An experimental study of sulfur and NOx fluxes over grassland

Three independent sulfur sensors were used in a study of sulfur eddy fluxes to a field of wheat stubble and mixed grasses, conducted in Southern Ohio in September, 1979. Two of these sensors were modified commercial instruments; one operated with a prefilter to measure gaseous sulfur compounds and the other with a denuder system to provide submicron particulate sulfur data. The third sensor was a prototype system, used to measure total sulfur fluxes. The data obtained indicated that the deposition velocity for gaseous sulfur almost always exceeded that for particulate sulfur; average surface conductances were about 1.0 cm s^–1 for gaseous sulfur in the daytime and about 0.4 cm s^–1 for particulate sulfur. The data indicate that nighttime values were probably much lower. The total sulfur sensor provided support for these conclusions. The boundary-layer quantity ln(z ₀ /z _H )was found to be 2.75 ± 0.55, in close agreement with expectations and thus providing some assurance that the site was adequate for eddy flux studies. However, fluxes derived using a prototype NO_x sensor were widely scattered, partially as a consequence of sensor noise but also possibly because of the effects of nearby sources of natural nitrogen compounds.Formerly with Argonne National Laboratory.     

Eddy-correlation measurements of sensible heat fluxes over a grass surface

Direct measurements of sensible heat fluxes were conducted over a grass surface at Ladner, British Columbia, using yaw-sphere-thermometer eddy-correlation systems. The results show that for half-hour averaging periods, there is no phase-lag between sensible heat and net radiation flux densities. Field comparison of two yaw-sphere-thermometer systems gave good and consistent agreement. At a height of 2 m above ground and a horizontal crosswind separation of 1.5 m, less than 5% variability was noted in the measured heat fluxes. For a 19-m horizontal separation, the variability was less than 20%. The aridity index (α) advanced by Priestley and Taylor (1972), is shown to be a potentially useful climatic indicator.