Turbulence Spectra Over Open Water During a Thunderstorm Outflow Event

摘要

The allocations for water from the Rio Grande River in New Mexico are approaching nine times its prescribed capacity. Efficient river management requires knowledge of daily evaporation losses from open water surfaces. Current estimates rely on simple approaches developed over 30 years ago. In an effort to improve these estimates, we have initiated a study making eddy covariance measurements over a large reservoir in southern New Mexico. The general goal is to examine evaporation rates and develop appropriate models for open water in semi-arid regions. In addition to yearlong monitoring of energy fluxes from the reservoir surface, short-term intensive data acquisition campaigns were conducted in conjunction with a water vapor scanning Lidar. The objective is to gain further insight into the turbulent processes affecting evaporation over an open water surface surrounded desert environment. During the course of one campaign, turbulence from an intense outflow of a localized convective cell moved over the site, and greatly altered the turbulence and fluxes. Here we report the interesting results of this event.