Momentum- and Heat-Flux Parametrization at Dome C, Antarctica: A Sensitivity Study

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• 作者：Etienne Vignon ; Christophe Genthon ; Hélène Barral…
• 关键词：Antarctic Plateau ; Model parametrizations ; Roughness length ; Stable boundary layer ; Turbulent fluxes
• 刊名：Boundary-Layer Meteorology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：162
• 期：2
• 页码：341-367
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Atmospheric Sciences; Meteorology; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-1472
• 卷排序：162

文摘

An extensive meteorological observational dataset at Dome C, East Antarctic Plateau, enabled estimation of the sensitivity of surface momentum and sensible heat fluxes to aerodynamic roughness length and atmospheric stability in this region. Our study reveals that (1) because of the preferential orientation of snow micro-reliefs (sastrugi), the aerodynamic roughness length \(z_{0}\) varies by more than two orders of magnitude depending on the wind direction; consequently, estimating the turbulent fluxes with a realistic but constant \(z_{0}\) of 1 mm leads to a mean friction velocity bias of \(24\,\%\) in near-neutral conditions; (2) the dependence of the ratio of the roughness length for heat \(z_{0t}\) to \(z_{0}\) on the roughness Reynolds number is shown to be in reasonable agreement with previous models; (3) the wide range of atmospheric stability at Dome C makes the flux very sensitive to the choice of the stability functions; stability function models presumed to be suitable for stable conditions were evaluated and shown to generally underestimate the dimensionless vertical temperature gradient; as these models differ increasingly with increases in the stability parameter z / L, heat flux and friction velocity relative differences reached \(100\,\%\) when \(z/L > 1\); (4) the shallowness of the stable boundary layer is responsible for significant sensitivity to the height of the observed temperature and wind data used to estimate the fluxes. Consistent flux results were obtained with atmospheric measurements at heights up to 2 m. Our sensitivity study revealed the need to include a dynamical parametrization of roughness length over Antarctica in climate models and to develop new parametrizations of the surface fluxes in very stable conditions, accounting, for instance, for the divergence in both radiative and turbulent fluxes in the first few metres of the boundary layer.