解耦的海洋性层积云顶边界层湍流与云微物理特征

基于POST观测计划中获得的海洋性层积云顶边界层内高频气象资料和云微物理资料,在选取解耦个例基础上研究解耦边界层湍流和云微物理特征及成因。结果表明,过渡层的大气静力稳定度较强,抑制向上浮力做功,使得湍流动能迅速消耗殆尽,实现边界层解耦。湍流动能最大值出现在云内,主要与云顶降温、大云滴下落沉降拖曳带来的下沉气流增强及云底之上附近凝结增长潜热释放产生向上浮力作用有关。近地面层的浮力项和切变项对湍流动能都起到增强作用,并以切变项的贡献更为显著,云内的湍流动能是以浮力项贡献为主。过渡层附近存在向下的热通量,抑制了热量向上输送和向上浮力项的增强,促进解耦发生。云内存在向上感热通量,其最大值及其出现高度主要与云顶冷却和云中下部的凝结潜热加热有关。云顶之上湿层促进了潜热通量的向下输送,增强了云内水汽含量,为解耦边界层云的发展起到正反馈作用。云顶浮力倒转引起的云中湍流混合呈现非均匀性,并进一步导致绝热或超绝热液滴出现,促进凝结和碰并增长的增强,同时云顶之上湿层进一步对云中的微物理增长起到了重要的推动作用。云底因夹卷混合表现为均匀混合特征。     

A scheme for resampling, filtering, and subsampling unevenly spaced laser Doppler anemometer data

Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA) has proved a powerful tool for quantifying fluid turbulence and is increasingly being applied in fields such as fluvial sedimentology and geomorphology. When operated in the burst-signal processing mode, high-frequency velocity fluctuations are measured at irregular time internals. In many situations, there is a need to transform these data to obtain evenly spaced velocity values but at a lower frequency. However, clear guidelines for this type of data processing are lacking. Three steps are necessary in order to transform the original files into evenly spaced data: (1) resampling at the average sampling rate, (2) low-pass filtering with half-power frequency adjusted to the final sampling frequency, and (3) decimating at the desired frequency. The decision taken at each step will affect the resulting signal and may cause, if not assessed carefully, severe problems in the signal such as aliasing errors. This paper examines each stage of data processing and details the advantages and drawbacks of different techniques in relation to the effects on turbulence statistics (variance, instantaneous shear stress, etc.). A standard method and specific guidelines are finally proposed. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Wave Flow Simulations Over Arctic Leads

We investigate the flow over Arctic leads using a mesoscale numerical model, typical of both summer and winter, under idealised conditions. We find that Arctic leads may be the source of standing atmospheric internal gravity waves during both seasons. The summertime wave may be compared with the wave generated by a small ridge, though with the phase reversed. The mechanism for exciting the wave is found to be the internal boundary layer developing due to horizontal variations in surface temperature and roughness length. During the more exploratory wintertime simulations, with substantial temperature difference between the lead and the ice surface, we find that secondary circulations and intermittent wave-breaking may occur. The effects of the lead appear far downstream.     

Joint PDF Modelling of Turbulent Flow and Dispersion in an Urban Street Canyon

The joint probability density function (PDF) of turbulent velocity and concentration of a passive scalar in an urban street canyon is computed using a newly developed particle-in-cell Monte Carlo method. Compared to moment closures, the PDF methodology provides the full one-point one-time PDF of the underlying fields containing all higher moments and correlations. The small-scale mixing of the scalar released from a concentrated source at the street level is modelled by the interaction by exchange with the conditional mean (IECM) model, with a micro-mixing time scale designed for geometrically complex settings. The boundary layer along no-slip walls (building sides and tops) is fully resolved using an elliptic relaxation technique, which captures the high anisotropy and inhomogeneity of the Reynolds stress tensor in these regions. A less computationally intensive technique based on wall functions to represent the boundary layers and its effect on the solution are also explored. The calculated statistics are compared to experimental data and large-eddy simulation. The present work can be considered as the first example of computation of the full joint PDF of velocity and a transported passive scalar in an urban setting. The methodology proves successful in providing high level statistical information on the turbulence and pollutant concentration fields in complex urban scenarios.     

A comparison of local simulations and reduced models of MRI-induced turbulence

We run mean-field shearing-box numerical simulations with a temperature-dependent resistivity and compare them to a reduced dynamical model. Our simulations reveal the co-existence of two quasi-steady states, a 'quiet' state and an 'active' turbulent state, confirming the predictions of the reduced model. The initial conditions determine on which state the simulation ultimately settles. The active state is strongly influenced by the geometry of the computational box and the thermal properties of the gas. Cubic domains support permanent channel flows, bar-shaped domains exhibit eruptive behaviour, and horizontal slabs give rise to infrequent channels. Meanwhile, longer cooling time-scales lead to higher saturation amplitudes.     

Probing magnetic turbulence by synchrotron polarimetry: statistics and structure of magnetic fields from Stokes correlators

We describe a novel technique for probing the statistical properties of cosmic magnetic fields based on radio polarimetry data. Second-order magnetic field statistics like the power spectrum cannot always distinguish between magnetic fields with essentially different spatial structure. Synchrotron polarimetry naturally allows certain fourth-order magnetic field statistics to be inferred from observational data, which lifts this degeneracy and can thereby help us gain a better picture of the structure of the cosmic fields and test theoretical scenarios describing magnetic turbulence. In this work we show that a fourth-order correlator of specific physical interest, the tension force spectrum, can be recovered from the polarized synchrotron emission data. We develop an estimator for this quantity based on polarized emission observations in the Faraday rotation free frequency regime. We consider two cases: a statistically isotropic field distribution, and a statistically isotropic field superimposed on a weak mean field. In both cases the tension force power spectrum is measurable; in the latter case, the magnetic power spectrum may also be obtainable. The method is exact in the idealized case of a homogeneous relativistic electron distribution that has a power-law energy spectrum with a spectral index of   p = 3  , and assumes statistical isotropy of the turbulent field. We carry out numerical tests of our method using synthetic polarized emission data generated from numerically simulated magnetic fields. We show that the method is valid, that it is not prohibitively sensitive to the value of the electron spectral index p , and that the observed tension force spectrum allows one to distinguish between e.g. a randomly tangled magnetic field (a default assumption in many studies) and a field organized in folded flux sheets or filaments.     

The inner scale of the plasma turbulence towards PSR J1644−4559

By measuring the decaying shape of the scatter-broadened pulse from the bright distant pulsar PSR J1644−4559, we probe waves scattered at relatively high angles by very small spatial scales in the interstellar plasma, which allows us to test for a wavenumber cutoff in the plasma density spectrum. Under the hypothesis that the density spectrum is due to plasma turbulence, we can thus investigate the (inner) scale at which the turbulence is dissipated. We report observations carried out with the Parkes radio telescope at 660 MHz from which we find strong evidence for an inner scale in the range 70–100 km, assuming an isotropic Kolmogorov spectrum. By identifying the inner scale with the ion inertial scale, we can also estimate the mean electron density of the scattering region to be 5–10 cm⁻³. This is comparable with the electron density of H  ii region G339.1−0.4, which lies in front of the pulsar, and so confirms that this region dominates the scattering. We conclude that the plasma inside the region is characterized by fully developed turbulence with an outer scale in the range 1–20 pc and an inner scale of 70–100 km. The shape of the rising edge of the pulse constrains the distribution of the strongly scattering plasma to be spread over about 20 per cent of the 4.6 kpc path from the pulsar, but with similarly high electron densities in two or more thin layers, their thicknesses can only be 10–20 pc.     

Stochastic wobble of accretion discs and jets from turbulent rocket torques

Models of accretion discs and their associated outflows often incorporate assumptions of axisymmetry and symmetry across the disc plane. However, for turbulent discs these symmetries only apply to averaged quantities and do not apply locally. The local asymmetries can induce local imbalances in outflow power across the disc mid-plane, which can in turn induce local tilting torques. Here we calculate the effect of the resulting stochastic torques on disc annuli that are a consequence of standard mean field accretion disc models. The torques induce a random walk of the vector perpendicular to the plane of each averaged annulus. This random walk is characterized by a radially dependent diffusion coefficient which we calculate for small angle tilt. We use the coefficient to calculate a radially dependent time-scale for annular tilt and associated jet wobble. The wobble time depends on the square of the wander angle so the age of a given system determines the maximum wobble angle. We apply this to examples of blazars, young stellar objects and binary engines of pre-planetary nebulae and microquasars. It is noteworthy that for an averaging time   t _w∼ 3 d  , we estimate a wobble angle for jets in SS 433 of  θ∼ 0.8°  , not inconsistent with observational data. In general the non-periodic nature of the stochastic wobble could distinguish it from faster periodic jet precession.