A Simulation of the Wangara Atmospheric Boundary Layer Data

Abstract

Previously, the authors have studied a hierarchy of turbulent boundary layer models, all based on the same closure assumptions for the triple turbulence moments. The models differ in complexity by virtue of a systematic process of neglecting certain of the tendency and diffusion terms in the dynamic equations for the turbulent moments. Based on this work a Level 3 model was selected as one which apparently sacrificed little predictive accuracy, but which afforded considerable numerical simplification relative to the more complex Level 4 model. An earlier paper had demonstrated that the model produced similarity solutions in near agreement with surface, constant flux data. In this paper, simulators from the Level 3 model are compared with two days of Wangara atmospheric boundary layer data (Clarke et al., 1971). In this comparison, there is an easily identified error introduced by our inability to include advection of momentum in the calculation since these terms were not measured. Otherwise, the calculated results and the observational data appear to he in close agreement.