Go to Page Main Content
NASA - Goddard Institute for Space Studies + NASA Portal
+ Goddard Space Flight Center
+ GSFC Earth Sciences Division
FIND IT @ NASA
NASA Homepage Goddard Institute for Space Studies

ABSTRACT

Canuto et al. 2001

Canuto, V.M., Y. Cheng, and A. Howard, 2001: New third-order moments for the convective boundary layer. J. Atmos. Sci., 58, 1169-1172, doi:10.1175/1520-0469(2001)058<1169:NTOMFT>2.0.CO;2.

Turbulent convection is inherently a nonlocal phenomenon and a primary condition for a successful treatment of the convective boundary layer is a reliable model of nonlocality. In the dynamic equations governing the convective flux, the turbulent kinetic energy, etc., nonlocality is represented by the third-order moments (TOMs). Since the simplest form, the so-called down gradient approximation (DGA), severely underestimates the TOMs (up to an order of magnitude), a more physical model is needed. In 1994, an analytical model was presented that was derived directly from the dynamical equations for the TOMs. It considerably improved the DGA but was a bit cumbersome to use and, more importantly, it was based on the quasi-normal (QN) approximation for the fourth-order moments.

Here, we present a new analytic expression for the TOMs that is structurally simpler than the 1994 expression and avoids the QN approximation. The resulting fit to the LES data is superior to that of the 1994 model.

Citation Styles

Show: ACP, AGU, AMS, ApJ, JQSRT, Science style

+ GISS Home

PUBLICATIONS
  • Publications Main Page
  • Authors
  • GISS Best Publication Award
  • Dissertations
  • Advanced Search
  • Publications Help
USA.gov

End of Page