Authors: G Heinemann
Publish Date: 2005/06/30
Volume: 83, Issue: 1-4, Pages: 35-50
Abstract
The dynamical effect of land surface heterogeneity on heat fluxes in the atmospheric boundary layer ABL is investigated using numerical simulations with a nonhydrostatic model over a wide range of grid resolutions It is commonly assumed that mesoscale or dynamical fluxes associated with mesoscale and convective circulations simulated by a highresolution model subgrid SG model on the subgrid scale of a climate model largescale LS model represent additional processes in the ABL which are not considered by the turbulence scheme of the LSmodel and which can be parameterized using the SGmodel The present study investigates the usefulness of this methodology for smallscale and largescale idealized heterogeneities using a SGmodel resolving mesoscale or even microscale circulations to compute the mesoscale fluxes on the scale of the LSmodel It is shown that the dynamical transports as derived from the SGmodel should not be used to correct the parameterized turbulent fluxes of the LSmodel The reason is that the subgrid circulations simulated by the SGmodel interact with the fields of wind and scalars in the ABL which results in reduced turbulent fluxes in the ABL Thus the methodology of previous studies to use mesoscale/dynamical fluxes for the correction of flux profiles simulated by climate models seems to be questionable
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