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The turbulent transfer mechanisms: A time domain analysis
Author(s) -
McBean G. A.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49710042307
Subject(s) - momentum (technical analysis) , buoyancy , turbulence , momentum transfer , heat transfer , mechanics , probability density function , physics , instability , flux (metallurgy) , heat flux , meteorology , thermodynamics , environmental science , materials science , mathematics , statistics , optics , finance , scattering , economics , metallurgy
The turbulent transfer processes near the surface were investigated through time domain statistical analyses of the fluctuations of horizontal and vertical wind and temperature. The joint probability density functions for ( w,u ) and ( w,T ) and the probability densities, flux‐angle distributions and fluctuation‐magnitude‐and‐duration distributions for wu and wT were computed. The results showed that the transfer mechanisms for momentum and heat fluxes were different and these differences increased with instability. The effects of buoyancy are to lead to highly efficient heat transfers but to very inefficient momentum transfers. For z/L = −0.5 large amounts of momentum are transferred both up and down by large fluctuations in wu but the net transfer is relatively small and usually downward. The heat transfer process, on the other hand, is more uniform in time and the large fluctuations of wT are just about all upward.