The Indirect Determination of Stability, Heat and Momentum Fluxes in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer from Simple Scalar Variables During Dry Unstable Conditions

Abstract

Turbulence data from two sites have been analyzed to obtain an indirect relation between the Obukhov stability parameter, z/L, and temperature statistics during dry unstable conditions. The skewness of a single scalar variable, temperature, at a single height is used to obtain z/L, thereby demonstrating the value and importance of the no-Gaussian properties of the temperature statistics. A relation between σ?/T* and z/L has been obtained for the stability range ?60< z/L≤0.5 Explicit forms for heat flux and shear stress have been obtained for the unstable portion of this range in terms of z/L,k, σ?, z, ? and constants. Combining the above techniques provides a method of obtaining z/L, H/pcp and u* from temperature statistics during dry unstable conditions. Within the limitations of the observational uncertainties, the functions appear to be consistent for one or more different sites.