Estimation of drag coefficient over the western desert sector of the Indian summer monsoon trough

In the estimation of momentum fluxes over land surfaces by the bulk aerodynamic method, no unique value of the drag coefficient (C _D) is found in the literature. The drag coefficient is generally estimated from special observations at different parts of the world. In this study an attempt is made to estimate drag coefficient over the western desert sector of India using data sets of Monsoon Trough Boundary Layer Experiment (MONTBLEX) during the summer monsoon season of 1990. For this purpose, the fast and slow response data sets obtained simultaneously from a 30 m high micro-meteorological tower at Jodhpur are used. All the observations used in this study are confined to a wind speed regime of 2.5–9.0 ms⁻¹. A comparison of momentum fluxes computed by eddy correlation (direct estimation) with profile and bulk aerodynamic (C _D = 3.9 × 10⁻³, Garratt, 1977) methods revealed that though the nature of variation of the fluxes by all these methods is almost similar, both the indirect methods give an under-estimated value of the fluxes. The drag coefficient is estimated as a function of wind speed and surface stability by a multiple regression approach. An average value of the estimated drag coefficient is found to be of the order of 5.43 × 10⁻³. The estimated value ofC _D is validated with a set of independent observations and found to be quite satisfactory. The recomputed momentum fluxes by bulk aerodynamic method using the estimated drag coefficient are in close agreement with the directly estimated fluxes.     

Evaporation and energy balance of a wet grassland at Tadham Moor on the Somerset Levels

Wet grasslands are important both for their conservation value and for their important hydrological function. Evaporation is an important component of the water balance of a wetland. Where water is limited rainfall and/or surface (or sub‐surface) inflows are required to balance the summer evaporation and thus become a significant factor in the maintenance and environmental health of a wetland. This study presents an almost complete year of measurements of the water and energy balance of a wet grassland in the Somerset Levels in southwest England. The majority of the radiant energy at this site goes into evaporation. There is a strong seasonality of the controls on evaporation; the roughness length varies by a factor of 10 between winter and summer. The surface resistance to evaporation is low, close to zero, during the winter when the water table is at, or just below the surface. In the summer the water table drops to 80 cm below the surface; there is no sign of soil water stress on the evaporation but a clear effect of the senescence of grass during seed head production and of the subsequent harvest. There is clear evidence that water for evaporation is provided by the drainage ditches through sub‐surface flow. Standard evaporation formulae—such as the Penman‐Monteith equation with constant and standard parameters—provide a reasonable simulation of the total evaporation at this site, although they miss some of the seasonal detail. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tidal fluxes of nutrients and suspended sediments at the North Inlet–Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve

Beginning June of 1993 suites of 13 water samples have been collected at Oyster Landing, North Inlet (SC), every 20 days covering two consecutive tidal cycles at 2.07 h intervals. In order to ascertain whether this large (and still growing) water chemistry data set can be used to determine tidal fluxes of nutrients and sediments, we coupled measured concentrations to estimates of instantaneous tidal discharge based on a basin water storage curve and hindcast tides. The mean advective fluxes of all constituents, including salt, showed statistically significant exports. This result, however, is largely due to an ebb bias in the sampling protocol, which resulted in 52% of the samples being collected on ebb tide versus a theoretical percentage of 48%. When this bias was corrected by reducing the mean discharge (−610 l s⁻¹) to a value (−125 l s⁻¹) that produced a balance between the mean advective and dispersive salt fluxes, the advective fluxes of the other constituents were reduced to values that are not significantly different from zero. In addition to a statistically significant dispersive influx of salt, significant dispersive exports were found for DON, NH₄, DOP, PO₄ and DOC. All particulate constituents (PN, PP, ISS and OSS) yielded dispersive fluxes that were not significantly different from zero. Annual material budgets for the Oyster Landing basin based on the dispersive fluxes of all constituents (except salt) are generally similar in magnitude and direction to those measured by [Dame, R.F., Spurrier, J.D., Williams, T.M., Kjerfve, B., Zingmark, R.G., Wolaver, T.G., Chrzanowski, T.H., McKeller, H.N., Vernberg, F.J., 1991. Annual material processing by a salt marsh-estuarine basin in South Carolina, USA. Marine Ecology Progress Series 72, 153–166.] in the nearby and ecologically similar Bly Creek basin, indicating that the dispersive fluxes determined in this study are realistic. We offer suggestions for improving the reliability and usefulness of future Oyster Landing water quality data.     

Accuracy and precision of different sampling strategies and flux integration methods for runoff water: comparisons based on measurements of the electrical conductivity

Because of their fast response to hydrological events, small catchments show strong quantitative and qualitative variations in their water runoff. Fluxes of solutes or suspended material can be estimated from water samples only if an appropriate sampling scheme is used. We used continuous in‐stream measurements of the electrical conductivity of the runoff in a small subalpine catchment (64 ha) in central Switzerland and in a very small (0·16 ha) subcatchment. Different sampling and flux integration methods were simulated for weekly water analyses. Fluxes calculated directly from grab samples are strongly biased towards high conductivities observed at low discharges. Several regressions and weighted averages have been proposed to correct for this bias. Their accuracy and precision are better, but none of these integration methods gives a consistently low bias and a low residual error. Different methods of peak sampling were also tested. Like regressions, they produce important residual errors and their bias is variable. This variability (both between methods and between catchments) does not allow one to tell a priori which sampling scheme and integration method would be more accurate. Only discharge‐proportional sampling methods were found to give essentially unbiased flux estimates. Programmed samplers with a fraction collector allow for a proportional pooling and are appropriate for short‐term studies. For long‐term monitoring or experiments, sampling at a frequency proportional to the discharge appears to be the best way to obtain accurate and precise flux estimates. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Methodological Development of the Conditional Sampling Method. Part II: Quality Control Criteria of Relaxed Eddy Accumulation Flux Measurements

Determination of biosphere–atmosphere exchanges requires accurate quantification of the turbulent fluxes of energy and of a wide variety of trace gases. Relaxed Eddy Accumulation (REA) is a method that has received increasing attention in recent years, because it does not require any rapid sensor for the scalar measurements as the Eddy Correlation method (EC) does. As in all micrometeorological studies, REA measurements in the atmospheric surface layer are valid under some restrictive conditions so as to be representative of a specific ecosystem. These conditions are the homogeneity of the underlying surface, stationary and horizontally homogeneous turbulence. For most experiments these conditions are not fully satisfied. Data uncertainties can also be related to not fulfilling the method principles or to the technical characteristics of the REA system itself. In order to assess REA measurement quality, a methodological approach of data analysis is developed in this study. This methodological analysis is based on the establishment of criteria for data quality control. A set of them, deduced from the mean and turbulent flow, are called ‘Dynamic criteria’ and are designated to control the stationarity and homogeneity of the w function and the validation of Taylor’s hypothesis. A second set (‘REA operational criteria’) is designed to check the sampling process and, more precisely, the homogeneity of the negative and positive selection process throughout the sampling period. A third set of criteria (‘Chemical scalar criteria’) concerns the scalar measurements. Results of the criteria application to data measured at two different experimental sites are also presented. Cut-off limits of criteria are defined based on their statistical distribution and shown to be specific for each site. Strictness of each criterion, defined by the percentage of flagged samples, is analysed in conjunction with the meteorological conditions and atmospheric stability. It is found that flagged samples mainly correspond to neutral and stable nocturnal conditions. During daytime, nearly free convection conditions can also yield poor quality data.     

Turbulent structure in uniform inclined open channel flow over different rough porous beds

In this study the effects of the different rough porous beds in an open inclined channel are studied experimentally for impermeable and permeable porous bed.For the simulation of porous bed two different types of permeable bed with the same thickness(s' = 3 cm) and the same porosity ε=0.70 are used:(a) porous filters and(b) gravel bed.Laboratory experiments were used for the calculation of turbulent velocity profiles.Measurements of velocity were taken for inclined channel for three different slopes(S=-0.002,S=-0.004 and S=-0.006) and for five different flow depths(h=5 cm,7 cm,9 cm,11 cm and 13 cm).The total discharge Q varies from 0.78 to 1.31 1/s.The measurements were obtained using a two-dimensional(2D) Particle Image Velocimetry(PIV).The total discharge was estimated using a calibrated venture apparatus.Results showed that the presence of rough porous bed in inclined open channels influence significantly the turbulent characteristics of the flow in comparison with impermeable open channels with the same slopes.     

Global spectra of energy and enstrophy and their fluxes during July 1979

Transient and stationary spectra of kinetic energy (KE), available potential energy (APE) and enstrophy (EN), and their spectral fluxes as a function of the two-dimensional wavenumbern were computed for July 1979. Triangular truncation at zonal wavenumber 42 was used for computation. The slopes of various spectra in the wavenumber range 14≤n≤25 were obtained by fitting a straight line in log-log scale by the least square method. The transientKE, APE andEN spectra in the lower (upper) troposphere had slopes −2·21 (−2·30), −2·65 (−2·64) and −0·36 (−0·46), respectively. The effect of stationary and divergent motion on the slope values was investigated. The possible correlation between the slope and percentage of transient component in the combined energy and enstrophy was examined to identify the transient motion of the atmosphere with the two-dimensional homogeneous isotropic turbulence. The vertically averaged slope of kinetic energy and enstrophy in the lower (upper) troposphere was close to the value at 700 (200) hPa level. The spectral fluxes of kinetic energy and enstrophy in the wavenumber range 14≤n≤25 satisfied, to a very rough approximation, the criteria of inertial subrange. The stationary fluxes were small. The estimated stationary-transient component of flux was larger, comparable and less than the corresponding transient flux of APE, KE and EN. Representative levels for computation of energy and enstrophy spectra and their fluxes in the lower and upper troposphere were identified.     

利用卫星遥感资料反演感热和潜热通量的研究综述

区域平均感热和潜热通量是气象、水文、生态模式中的关键物理因子,卫星遥感反演为观测区域平均感热和潜热通量提供了可能。对利用卫星遥感资料反演地气通量的方法进行了总结和评述。首先描述了现在常用的反演方法,分析了方法中的各种假定对反演结果的影响,并对不同的模式反演结果进行了比较。还指出了评价卫星反演通量的精度时需要注意的问题。最后对该领域内现存的问题与发展方向进行探讨。     

梯度扩散理论在能量和物质输送计算中的若干问题

本文用近年来的大量观测结果,揭示了被长期使用的梯度扩散理论的问题和局限性。讨论了它的成立条件:只有当湍流的涡旋尺度远小于梯度变化的空间尺度时,梯度扩散理论才可以正确使用。对于几种典型的近地层条件,计算了它们的湍流的涡旋尺度,从而说明了梯度扩散理论在这些条件下失败的原因。