Case Study of Layer Fine Structure and Turbulence within Stable Elevated Layers

摘要

Profiles of the wind and temperature structure within an elevated temperature inversion lying across the BAO 300 meter tower near Erie, Colorado reveal a fine structure reminiscent of the sheet and layer structure often seen in the ocean thermocline. Detailed examination indicates that the profiles of wind and temperature sometimes 'saturate', adjusting themselves to a critical Richardson Number just small enough to maintain turbulence; the turbulence is created by shear instability of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves. The result offers hope of sensing temperature gradients aloft remotely from ground-based radar measurements of wind. One possible approach to the use of such a system for meteorological purposes would be to reformulate meteorological problems in terms of temperature gradient, layer thickness and layer height. Another approach might be to incorporate the gradient and height information into radiometric profile retrieval processing to provide accurate integrated profiles.