Turbulent and boundary layer characteristics during VOCALS-REx

Dodson, Dillon S.; Small Griswold, Jennifer D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1937-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1937-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-1937-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 3

Research article

|

10 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 10 Feb 2021

Turbulent and boundary layer characteristics during VOCALS-REx

Dillon S. Dodson and Jennifer D. Small Griswold

Data sets

VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study Regional Experiment (VOCALS-REX) University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) https://archive.eol.ucar.edu/projects/vocals/rex.html

VOCALS Data Sets University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR http://data.eol.ucar.edu/master_list/?project=VOCALS

CIRPAS Twin Otter Navigation and State Parameters, Version 1.0 B. Albrecht https://data.eol.ucar.edu/dataset/89.132

CIRPAS Twin Otter PCASP Data, Version 1.0 B. Albrecht https://data.eol.ucar.edu/dataset/89.158

The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project E. Kalnay, M. Kanamitsu, R. Kistler, W. Collins, D. Deaven, L. Gandin, M. Iredell, S. Saha, G. White, J. Woollen, Y. Zhu, A. Leetmaa, R. Reynolds, M. Chelliah, W. Ebisuzaki, W. Higgins, J. Janowiak, K. C. Mo, C. Ropelewski, J. Wang, R. Jenne, and D. Joseph https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html

Short summary

The results here reinforce findings from previous in situ studies of the marine boundary layer. It is found that turbulence is maximized in the middle of the stratocumulus layer from latent heating effects. Precipitation acts to increase turbulence in the sub-cloud layer, while acting to stabilize the entire boundary layer after the evaporation of precipitation in the sub-cloud has stopped. A negative correlation is present between the boundary layer height and turbulence.