High-Frequency Temperature and Humidity Correlation Above a Warm Wet Surface

Abstract

Temperature and humidity fluctuations at frequencies within the inertial subrange are found experimentally to be partially correlated in the surface boundary layer over warm wet surfaces. The spectral correlation coefficient, deduced from variances and covariances computed by analog electronics, is near unity in the flux-carrying eddies and decreases with increasing frequency, approximately as n½. As a result, optical refractive index fluctuations may have the false appearance of being strongly anisotropic in the inertial subrange.