Similarity functions D for water vapor in the unstable atmospheric boundary layer

An analysis was performed of experimental data obtained at fixed ship stations during AMTEX 1974 and 1975. This allowed the calculation of the bulk transfer relationships for water vapor and sensible heat in the atmospheric boundary layer for different interpretations of the thickness scale of the boundary layer. It was found that scaling based on the observed thickness, which herein was taken as the height of the lowest value in the potential temperature profile under unstable conditions, produces least scatter in the calculations. The results obtained for the similarity function c( _i ) of the bulk heat transfer coefficient are in good agreement with the results of previous studies. As observed earlier (Brutsaert and Mawdsley, 1976; Mawdsley and Brutsaert, 1977), under unstable conditions the similarity functions D() of the bulk water vapor transfer coefficient are smaller than the corresponding C() functions for sensible heat. In the case of inversion height scaling, the results can be represented by d( _i ) = 0.65 c( _i ).