Marginal stability of the convective boundary layer
Thuburn, J; Efstathiou, G
Date: 10 January 2020
Journal
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
Publisher
American Meteorological Society
Publisher DOI
Abstract
We hypothesize that the convective atmospheric boundary layer is marginally stable when the damping
effects of turbulence are taken into account. If the effects of turbulence are modeled as an eddy viscosity and
diffusivity then an idealized analysis based on the hypothesis predicts a well-known scaling for the magnitude
of the eddy ...
We hypothesize that the convective atmospheric boundary layer is marginally stable when the damping
effects of turbulence are taken into account. If the effects of turbulence are modeled as an eddy viscosity and
diffusivity then an idealized analysis based on the hypothesis predicts a well-known scaling for the magnitude
of the eddy viscosity and diffusivity. It also predicts that the marginally stable modes should have vertical
and horizontal scales comparable to the boundary layer depth. A more quantitative numerical linear stability
analysis is presented for a realistic convective boundary layer potential temperature profile and is found to
support the hypothesis.
Mathematics and Statistics
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
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