Use of the Inertial Dissipation Method for Calculating Turbulent Fluxes from Low-Level Airborne Measurements

Pierre Durand Laboratoire d'Aérologie, université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Search for other papers by Pierre Durand in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
,
Leonardo De Sa Laboratoire d'Aérologie, université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Search for other papers by Leonardo De Sa in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
,
Aimé Druilhet Laboratoire d'Aérologie, université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Search for other papers by Aimé Druilhet in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
, and
Frédérique Said Laboratoire d'Aérologie, université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Search for other papers by Frédérique Said in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
Full access

We are aware of a technical issue preventing figures and tables from showing in some newly published articles in the full-text HTML view.
While we are resolving the problem, please use the online PDF version of these articles to view figures and tables.

Abstract

Airborne measurements are currently used for computing turbulence fluxes of heat and momentum. The method generally used is the eddy correlation technique, which requires sophisticated equipments to calculate the absolute velocities of the air. We used the well-known inertial dissipation method to calculate the turbulent fluxes of heat and momentum from low-level airborne measurements This only requires knowledge of inertial subrange characteristics of velocity and scalars. The method was validated by comparing dissipation fluxes with those computed by the eddy correlation method. The agreement between the two is very good, particularly for heat fluxes. Last, it is shown how the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate can be easily calculated, using a single measurement (the attack angle by example), and therefore how turbulent fluxes can be simply calculated from low level airborne measurements.

Abstract

Airborne measurements are currently used for computing turbulence fluxes of heat and momentum. The method generally used is the eddy correlation technique, which requires sophisticated equipments to calculate the absolute velocities of the air. We used the well-known inertial dissipation method to calculate the turbulent fluxes of heat and momentum from low-level airborne measurements This only requires knowledge of inertial subrange characteristics of velocity and scalars. The method was validated by comparing dissipation fluxes with those computed by the eddy correlation method. The agreement between the two is very good, particularly for heat fluxes. Last, it is shown how the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate can be easily calculated, using a single measurement (the attack angle by example), and therefore how turbulent fluxes can be simply calculated from low level airborne measurements.

Save