Editorial Type:
Article
Article Type:
Research Article

Measured and Estimated Water Vapor Advection in the Atmospheric Surface Layer

Chad W. Higgins Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

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Eric Pardyjak Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

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Martin Froidevaux School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

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Valentin Simeonov School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

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Marc B. Parlange School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

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Print Publication:
01 Dec 2013
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-12-0166.1
Page(s):
1966–1972
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Abstract

The flux of water vapor due to advection is measured using high-resolution Raman lidar that was orientated horizontally across a land–lake transition. At the same time, a full surface energy balance is performed to assess the impact of scalar advection on energy budget closure. The flux of water vapor due to advection is then estimated with analytical solutions to the humidity transport equation that show excellent agreement with the field measurements. Although the magnitude of the advection was not sufficient to account for the total energy deficit for this field site, the analytical approach is used to explore situations where advection would be the dominant transport mechanism. The authors find that advection is at maximum when the measurement height is 0.036 times the distance to a land surface transition. The framework proposed in this paper can be used to predict the potential impact of advection on surface flux measurements prior to field deployment and can be used as a data analysis algorithm to calculate the flux of water vapor due to advection from field measurements.

Corresponding author address: Chad Higgins, Oregon State University, 116 Gilmore Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331. E-mail: chad.higgins@oregonstate.edu

Abstract

The flux of water vapor due to advection is measured using high-resolution Raman lidar that was orientated horizontally across a land–lake transition. At the same time, a full surface energy balance is performed to assess the impact of scalar advection on energy budget closure. The flux of water vapor due to advection is then estimated with analytical solutions to the humidity transport equation that show excellent agreement with the field measurements. Although the magnitude of the advection was not sufficient to account for the total energy deficit for this field site, the analytical approach is used to explore situations where advection would be the dominant transport mechanism. The authors find that advection is at maximum when the measurement height is 0.036 times the distance to a land surface transition. The framework proposed in this paper can be used to predict the potential impact of advection on surface flux measurements prior to field deployment and can be used as a data analysis algorithm to calculate the flux of water vapor due to advection from field measurements.

Corresponding author address: Chad Higgins, Oregon State University, 116 Gilmore Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331. E-mail: chad.higgins@oregonstate.edu
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Journal of Hydrometeorology

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