Experimental micrometeorology in an era of turbulence simulation

Micrometeorologists have traditionally used the framework of the ensemble mean, fluctuating decomposition in studying turbulence spectra, Reynolds-flux budgets, surface-exchange relations, and the universal functions of Monin-Obukhov similarity within the constant-flux layer. More recently, the growth in supercomputers and computational fluid dynamics has stimulated micrometeorological applications of large-eddy simulation (LES). LES uses a different framework, one based on the resolvable, subgrid-scale decomposition. This framework shift seems to have weakened the vital and historically strong coupling between experimental and computational work in micrometeorology. A challenge for experimentalists today is to address problems posed in the language of the resolvable, subgrid-scale decomposition. We illustrate by discussing measurement strategies for resolvable-scale turbulence fields and for local surface-exchange coefficients.