Identification

Title

Lidar-observed stress vectors and veer in the atmospheric boundary layer

Abstract

This study demonstrates that a pulsed wind lidar is a reliable instrument for measuring angles between horizontal vectors of significance in the atmospheric boundary layer. Three different angles are considered: the wind turning, the angle between the stress vector and the mean wind direction, and the angle between the stress vector and the vertical gradient of the mean velocity vector. The latter is assumed to be zero by the often applied turbulent-viscosity hypothesis, so that the stress vector can be described through the vertical gradient of velocity. In the atmospheric surface layer, where the Coriolis force is negligible, this is supposedly a good approximation. High-resolution large-eddy simulation data show that this is indeed the case even beyond the surface layer. In contrast, through analysis of WindCube lidar measurements supported by sonic measurements, the study shows that it is only valid very close to the surface. The deviation may be significant even at 100 m. This behavior is attributed to mesoscale effects.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d77945j5

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

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South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2013-09-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

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Use constraints

Copyright 2013 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-12T01:16:40.768028

Metadata language

eng; USA