Thorpe method applied to planetary boundary layer data

Abstract

Turbulence affects the dynamics of atmospheric processes by enhancing the transport of mass, heat, humidity and pollutants. The global objective of our work is to analyze some direct turbulent descriptors which reflect the mixing processes in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). In this paper we present results related to the Thorpe displacements dT , the maximum Thorpe displacement (dT )max and the Thorpe scale LT , the Ozmidov scale and their time evolution in the ABL during a day cycle. A tethered balloon was used to obtain vertical profiles of the atmospheric physical magnitudes up to 1000m. We discuss the vertical and horizontal variability and how different descriptors are related to atmospheric mixing

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