This study analyzes high-resolution ship data collected in the Gulf of Mexico during the Lagrangian Submesoscale Experiment (LASER) from January to February 2016 to produce the first reported measurements of dissipative heating in the explicitly nonhurricane atmospheric surface layer. Although typically computed from theory as a function of wind speed cubed, the dissipative heating directly estimated via the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) dissipation rate is also presented. The dissipative heating magnitude agreed with a previous study that estimated the dissipative heating in the hurricane boundary layer using in situ aircraft data. Our observations that the 10-m neutral drag coefficient parameterized using TKE dissipation rate approaches zero slope as wind increases suggests that TKE dissipation and dissipative heating are constrained to a physical limit. Both surface-layer stability and sea state were observed to be important conditions influencing dissipative heating, with the stability determined via TKE budget terms and the sea state determined via wave steepness and age using direct shipboard measurements. Momentum and enthalpy fluxes used in the TKE budget are determined using the eddy-correlation method. It is found that the TKE dissipation rate and the dissipative heating are largest in a nonneutral atmospheric surface layer with a sea surface comprising steep wind sea and slow swell waves at a given surface wind speed, whereas the ratio of dissipative heating to enthalpy fluxes is largest in near-neutral stability where the turbulent vertical velocities are near zero.
This content will become publicly available on August 18, 2024
This study analyzes observations collected by multilevel towers to estimate turbulence parameters in the atmospheric surface layer of two landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs). The momentum flux, turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and dissipation rate increase with the wind speed independent of surface types. However, the momentum flux and TKE are much larger over land than over the coastal ocean at a given wind speed range. The vertical eddy diffusivity is directly estimated using the momentum flux and strain rate, which more quickly increases with the wind speed over a rougher surface. Comparisons of the eddy diffusivity estimated using the direct flux method and that using the friction velocity and height show good agreement. On the other hand, the traditional TKE method overestimates the eddy diffusivity compared to the direct flux method. The scaling coefficients in the TKE method are derived for the two different surface types to better match with the vertical eddy diffusivity based on the direct flux method. Some guidance to improve vertical diffusion parameterizations for TC landfall forecasts in weather simulations are also provided.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10450093
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
- Volume:
- 128
- Issue:
- 17
- ISSN:
- 2169-897X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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