Aircraft observations of boundary layer turbulence: Intermittency and the cascade of energy and passive scalar variance
Name
Choetal-2001JGR2.pdf
Size
2.17 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
4ea31bf76243f0efa2277db8d15d67ad
Author(s)
Cho, John Y. N.
Anderson, Bruce E.
Barrick, John D. W.
Thornhill, K. Lee
Date Issued
December 2001
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Citation
Cho, John Y. N. et al. “Aircraft Observations of Boundary Layer Turbulence: Intermittency and the Cascade of Energy and Passive Scalar Variance.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 106, D23 (December 2001): 32469–32479 © 2001 American Geophysical Union
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We analyze boundary layer velocity and temperature measurements acquired by aircraft at 22 Hz. The calculated longitudinal velocity third-order structure function yields approximate agreement with Kolmogorov's four-fifths law for the scale range ∼10–100 m with a downscale energy flux of ∼4×10⁻⁵ m² s⁻³. For scales greater than ∼10 km the sign is reversed, implying an inverse energy cascade with an estimated flux of ∼10⁻⁵ m⁻² s⁻³ associated with two-dimensional stratified turbulence. The mixed structure function of longitudinal velocity and squared temperature increment follows Yaglom's four-thirds law in the same scale range, yielding an estimated downscale temperature variance flux of ∼5×10⁻⁷ K² s⁻¹. Analysis of higher-order structure functions yields anomalous scaling for both velocity and temperature. The scaling also reveals second-order multifractal phase transitions for both velocity and temperature data. Above the transition moments, asymptotes varying with the number of realizations argue against the log-Poisson model. The log-Levy model is better able to explain the observed characteristics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JD900079
