Wind-Tunnel Simulation of Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layers with an Overlying Inversion

• Published in: Boundary-layer meteorology Vol. 175; no. 1; pp. 93 - 112
• Main Authors: Hancock, Philip E., Hayden, Paul
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.04.2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Atmospheric boundary layer; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Boundary layer; Boundary layer height; Boundary layers; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Heat flux; Heat transfer; Height; Investigations; Leaves; Meteorology; Obukhov length; Research Article; Reynolds number; Richardson number; Scaling; Shear stress; Simulation; Stable boundary layer; Surface boundary layer; Surface layers; Temperature; Temperature differences; Temperature gradients; Velocity; Wind tunnels; Stable boundary layer; Inversion; Wind tunnel
• ISSN: 0006-8314; 1573-1472
• DOI: 10.1007/s10546-019-00496-7

Four cases of an overlying inversion imposed on a stable boundary layer are investigated, extending the earlier work of Hancock and Hayden (Boundary-Layer Meteorol 168:29–57, 2018), where no inversion was imposed. The inversion is imposed to one or other of two depths within the layer: midway or deep. Four cases of changed surface condition are also investigated, and it is seen that the surface and imposed conditions behave independently. A change of imposed inversion condition leaves the bottom 1/3 of the layer almost completely unaffected; a change of the surface condition leaves the top 2/3 unaffected. Comparisons are made against two sets of local-scaling systems over the full height of the boundary layer. Both show some influence of the inversion condition. The surface heat flux and the reduction in surface shear stress, and hence the ratio of the boundary-layer height to surface Obukhov length, are determined by the temperature difference across the surface layer (not the whole layer), bringing all cases together in single correlations as functions of a surface-layer bulk Richardson number.