Papers Published

1. Baidya Roy, Somnath and Avissar, Roni, Scales of response of the convective boundary layer to land-surface heterogeneity, Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 27 no. 4 (2000), pp. 533 - 536 [1999GL010971] .
   (last updated on 2007/03/27)

   Abstract:
   The convective boundary layer (CBL) over domains with meso-γ-scale (2-20 km) heterogeneity is characterized by preferentially located, organized rolls of characteristic size equivalent to the length-scale of the heterogeneity. Additionally, random turbulent thermals also develop when the length-scale of the heterogeneity exceeds 5-10 km. This is due to a complex interaction between the horizontal pressure gradient generated by the heterogeneity and the buoyancy forcing. Consequently, the corresponding wavelet spectrum exhibits two peaks - one representing the turbulent thermals at a characteristic scale of about 1.5 times the CBL height and another denoting the organized eddies at a scale similar to that of the heterogeneity. This implies that subgrid-scale parameterizations in models with grid size larger than 5-10 km, which account only for random turbulence, are inadequate for heterogeneous domains. Also, this study may provide a more objective classification of scales of atmospheric processes.

   Keywords:
   Boundary layer flow;Heat convection;Geomorphology;Atmospheric turbulence;Buoyancy;Atmospheric pressure;Atmospheric spectra;Mathematical models;Computer simulation;