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A Quantitative Study of Turbulent Fluxes over a Coastal Station

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Abstract

A comprehensive investigation is undertaken to discern the structure of momentum flux, turbulent kinetic energy, and scalar fluxes like heat, CO\(_2\), and H\(_2\)O in the atmospheric surface layer (ASL) at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station—a coastal station on the west coast of southern peninsular India. The vertical transport, transfer efficiency, and dissimilarity between flux transport are studied as a function of stability using data collected over 1 year. The transfer efficiency for heat fluxes and momentum exhibits a strong dependence on stability (\(\zeta \)). However, the transfer efficiency of passive scalars CO\(_2\) and H\(_2\)O displays no apparent dependence on \(\zeta \). The correlation between fluxes and squared coherence estimates is evaluated to study the dissimilarity between flux transport. The correlation is strongest among momentum and heat fluxes and between CO\(_2\) and H\(_2\)O fluxes and shows a dependence on the prevailing stability conditions. However, the influence of stability is not evident for the various other combinations. The momentum and heat flux transport is dissimilar for unstable conditions, and it becomes similar during the transition from unstable to near-neutral conditions. The quadrant analysis is employed to study the contribution of different fluid motions to the aforementioned turbulent fluxes. Except for CO\(_2\) and H\(_2\)O fluxes, where all the quadrants have an equal contribution, ejections and sweeps are the dominating contributors for momentum and heat fluxes. The stability conditions greatly determine the ejection-sweep balance for heat flux, while some changes in duration and impact fraction are also detectable for momentum flux. Furthermore, contour maps of joint-probability function (JPDF) of vertical velocity fluctuations (\(w'\)) with streamwise velocity fluctuation (\(u'\)), temperature fluctuation (\(T'\)), and scalar fluctuations, respectively, are also presented. The dominance of the ejection and sweep cycles for turbulent fluxes provide evidence for the presence and importance of coherent structures in ASL.

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Data Availibility

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the reviewers whose suggestions helped us improve the manuscript significantly. We would also like to acknowledge Dr.Anish Kumar M Nair, Dr.Mahesh C and Dileep P.K. and all the staff at Meteorology Facility, VSSC, ISRO, for their valuable discussions and support.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from the public, commercial, or not-for-profit funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, IIST, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 695447, India

    Sonali Maurya & A. Chandrasekar

  2. Meteorology Facility, Vikaram Sarabhai Space Center, ISRO, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 695022, India

    Sonali Maurya & K. V. S. Namboodiri

Authors
  1. Sonali Maurya
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  2. A. Chandrasekar
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  3. K. V. S. Namboodiri
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Contributions

The initial data analysis and figures, along with the first draft of the paper, were prepared by S.M. Further discussions on results and revision were done by A.C. and K.V.S.N.

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Correspondence to Sonali Maurya.

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Maurya, S., Chandrasekar, A. & Namboodiri, K.V.S. A Quantitative Study of Turbulent Fluxes over a Coastal Station. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 188, 55–74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-023-00802-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-023-00802-4

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