Heterogeneous surface fluxes and their effects on the SGP CART site

Abstract

The treatment of subgrid-scale variations of surface properties and the resultant spatial variations of sensible and latent heat fluxes has received increasing attention in recent years. Mesoscale numerical simulations of highly idealized conditions, in which strong flux contrasts exist between adjacent surfaces, have shown that under some circumstances the secondary circulations induced by land-use differences can significantly affect the properties of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) and the region of the atmosphere above the PBL. At the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site, the fluxes from different land-surface types are not expected to differ as dramatically as those found in idealized simulations. Although the corresponding effects on the atmosphere should thus be less dramatic, they are still potentially important. From an ARM perspective, in tests of single column models (SCMs) it would be useful to understand the effects of the lower boundary conditions on model performance. We describe here our initial efforts to characterize the variable surface fluxes over the CART site and to assess their effects on the PBL that are important for the performance of SCMs