Coherent structures and dissipation in a stably stratified boundary layer above an alpine glacier

Four sonic anemometers were deployed in the Spring of 2003 on the Aletsch glacier at Jungfraujoch in the Swiss Alps at an elevation of 3600m. The anemometers were arranged in a vertical array and each measured the three component velocity vector and the temperature at 20 Hz. Concurrently, LIDAR measurements of temperature, humidity, and atmospheric extinction were performed. The data from the sonic anemometers and LIDAR (SALIDAR) experiment were analyzed with the wavelet technique to identify extreme events and coherent structures. These events are then used as conditional sampling criterion to show the link between the structures and dissipation in the stably stratified glacial boundary layer.