Turbulence intermittency in the atmospheric surface layer over snow-covered sites

Wind component fluctuations have been decomposed into contributions of large and small-scale eddies to study turbulence structures in the atmospheric surface layer over snow-covered pack ice for a case with snow drift and another without. It was found that on average, the large eddies contribute little to the covariance, but significantly to the variance of the horizontal wind components. The turbulent kinetic energy and the friction velocity show clearly expressed energy and flux variations. The time series of turbulent statistics, calculated on the basis of large eddies only, show the same behavior. However, the time variations of the turbulent kinetic energy and the friction velocity, determined by the small eddies, are suppressed when there is drifting snow.The occurrence of different types of motions (ejections, sweeps and interactions) was detected by the quadrant-technique. It was found that events with strong drag reduction during snow drift correspond to a strong increase of contributions from the first and third quadrant. However, strong drag reduction events in the case without snow drift are caused by a general decrease of contributions from all four quadrants. It was also found that interactions are significantly less correlated with ejections and sweeps in the case with snow drift than in the case without.