Variations in the tropical planetary boundary layer

Climate variability impacts all regions of the atmosphere, especially the PBL where the major processes of surface energy balances drive the diurnal evolution. In order to understand the changes to the diurnal evolution of the PBL due to climate variations, a basic understanding of regional PBL processes must be reached. Diurnal, seasonal and other oscillations produce changes in the properties of the PBL that are important to understanding climate variability.

A one-dimensional model of the atmospheric boundary layer was used to analyze the structure of the atmosphere, and to diagnose and to predict diurnal and short-term forecasts of the evolution of the atmosphere as initialized from in-situ data sources. The evolution of the PBL indicates the background state of the global and regional PBL in the tropics during the tropical warm season in the northern hemisphere. Variations in the PBL indicate the dominant timescales for changes in the structure due to the free atmosphere and surface energy balances.