Identification

Title

Coevolution of down-valley flow and the nocturnal boundary layer in complex terrain

Abstract

An enhanced National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) integrated sounding system (ISS) was deployed as part of the Vertical Transport and Mixing (VTMX) field experiment, which took place in October of 2000. The enhanced ISS was set up at the southern terminus of the Great Salt Lake Valley just north of a gap in the Traverse Range (TR), which separates the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake basins. This location was chosen to sample the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of the flow as it passes over the TR separating the two basins. The enhanced ISS allowed for near-continuous sampling of the nocturnal boundary layer (NBL) and low-level winds associated with drainage flow through the gap in the TR. Diurnally varying winds were observed at the NCAR site on days characterized by weak synoptic forcing and limited cloud cover. A down-valley jet (DVJ) was observed on about 50% of the nights during VTMX, with the maximum winds usually occurring within 150 m of the surface. The DVJ was associated with abrupt warming at low levels as a result of downward mixing and vertical transport of warm air from the inversion layer above. Several processes were observed to contribute to vertical transport and mixing at the NCAR site. Pulses in the strength of the DVJ contributed to vertical transport by creating localized areas of low-level convergence. Gravity waves and Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, which facilitated vertical mixing near the surface and atop the DVJ, were observed with a sodar and an aerosol backscatter lidar that were deployed as part of the enhanced ISS. The nonlocal nature of the processes responsible for generating turbulence in strongly stratified surface layers in complex terrain confounds surface flux parameterizations typically used in mesoscale models that rely on Monin-Obukhov similarity theory. This finding has major implications for modeling NBL structure and drainage flows in regions of complex terrain.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7542nwb

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2006-10-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

Copyright 2006 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact