11th Conference on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography

Monday, 15 October 2001
Spectral Transfer of Humidity and Temperature Correlations for Inhomogeneous Turbulence for Land and Agriculture Processes
Sukaran R. Patel, Univ. Federal da Paraíba, Campina Grande, Brazil
Humidity and temperature measurements are not only intrinsically important as micrometeorological variables but also, because they are the components of the electromagnetic index of refraction, they govern the propagation of waves in the clear, turbulent atmosphere. Further, using optical scintillation measurements of inner scale and the refractive turbulence structure parameters, one may obtain complete micrometeorological characteristics of the surface layer and also the refractive index spectrum in the dissipation range is important to atmospheric optical propagation studies of both weak and very strong scintillation. The Monin-Obukhov similarity theory is one of the most powerful tools in describing the atmospheric boundary layer and the refractive index parameter is also considered as Monin-Obukhov quantity (Hill, 1989). There are several studies of similarity principles for homogeneous boundary layers but very few for horizontally inhomogeneous surfaces because of their obvious difficulties. Further, very recently a number of applications of this theory for refractive index spectrum have been reported by Hill (1989), Andreas (1985, 1988, 1989, 1990) among others. These motivate to study the various aspects of the spectral transfer of humidity and temperature in inhomogeneous turbulent motion since they are the important parameters for determination of refractive index parameter. In this study the two-point spectral equations for humidity and temperature are constructed. Normally, the terms associated with, both turbulence self-interaction (Batchelor, 1953) and mean gradients (Deissler, 1981) in the two-point spectral equation for homogeneous turbulence can be interpreted as transfer terms. However, a similar interpretation does not seem obvious for inhomogeneous turbulence, because the condition of homogeneity is generally used in making the interpretation (Deissler, 1981). Very recently, Patel (2000), using the method of Deissler (1981) has shown that certain terms in the two-point spectral equation for velocity-humidity correlation can be interpreted as transfer terms, even for general inhomogeneous turbulence. In this study the discussion has been extended for the case of spectral equations for humidity correlation and temperature correlation. It is hoped that this study will help better understanding of the modeling the turbulent flux exchanges for inhomogeneous surfaces for land and agriculture processes.

Supplementary URL: