Boundary Layers & Turbulence

Research Topics Include: Marine stratocumulus regime, Clear-air boundary layers, and Cold-air outbreak convection

Boundary Layers and Turbulence research seeks to increase the basic understanding of atmospheric processes that operate on scales of up to a few kilometers, and to determine their collective effects on larger-scale atmospheric phenomena. Research interests include boundary layer structure and dynamics; turbulence dynamics of both convective and stably-stratified flows; turbulent exchange processes (including both conserved and chemically reactive trace species); dynamical and radiational effects of boundary-layer clouds; and, atmosphere-surface interactions over land, water and ice. By themselves, these processes are interesting and important. They are also crucial to understanding the larger scale behavior of the atmosphere. To achieve these goals requires a combination of observational studies to provide data sets and test cases, and numerical and theoretical modeling for comparison with the observational data. Their goal is to develop a better understanding of microscale phenomena, and improved parameterizations of microscale phenomena, which are essential for larger-scale models.

People

Sean Burns
Jack Herring
Don Lenschow
Chin-Hoh Moeng
Ned Patton
Peter Sulllivan
Jielun Sun

Research Highlights