Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of symbols
- 1 The general nature of biosphere-atmosphere fluxes
- 2 Thermodynamics, work, and energy
- 3 Chemical reactions, enzyme catalysts, and stable isotopes
- 4 Control over metabolic fluxes
- 5 Modeling the metabolic CO2 flux
- 6 Diffusion and continuity
- 7 Boundary layer and stomatal control over leaf fluxes
- 8 Leaf structure and function
- 9 Water transport within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum
- 10 Leaf and canopy energy budgets
- 11 Canopy structure and radiative transfer
- 12 Vertical structure and mixing of the atmosphere
- 13 Wind and turbulence
- 14 Observations of turbulent fluxes
- 15 Modeling of fluxes at the canopy and landscape scales
- 16 Soil fluxes of CO2, CH4, and NOx
- 17 Fluxes of biogenic volatile compounds between plants and the atmosphere
- 18 Stable isotope variants as tracers for studying biosphere-atmosphere exchange
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
13 - Wind and turbulence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of symbols
- 1 The general nature of biosphere-atmosphere fluxes
- 2 Thermodynamics, work, and energy
- 3 Chemical reactions, enzyme catalysts, and stable isotopes
- 4 Control over metabolic fluxes
- 5 Modeling the metabolic CO2 flux
- 6 Diffusion and continuity
- 7 Boundary layer and stomatal control over leaf fluxes
- 8 Leaf structure and function
- 9 Water transport within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum
- 10 Leaf and canopy energy budgets
- 11 Canopy structure and radiative transfer
- 12 Vertical structure and mixing of the atmosphere
- 13 Wind and turbulence
- 14 Observations of turbulent fluxes
- 15 Modeling of fluxes at the canopy and landscape scales
- 16 Soil fluxes of CO2, CH4, and NOx
- 17 Fluxes of biogenic volatile compounds between plants and the atmosphere
- 18 Stable isotope variants as tracers for studying biosphere-atmosphere exchange
- References
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
There are two great unexplained mysteries in our understanding of the universe. One is the nature of a unified generalized theory to explain both gravity and electromagnetism. The other is an understanding of the nature of turbulence. After I die, I expect God to clarify the general field theory to me. I have no such hope for turbulence.
Theodore von Kármán (unpublished)Processes in the atmosphere have long had the power to capture human imagination and determine the fate of major historical events. Wind and atmospheric transport produced the “pure and white clouds” described in the poetry of Keats and are responsible for the dust storms that blinded armies during the Napoleonic wars. In our own lives we experience and depend on wind every day. It affects how airplanes fly, the efficiency of automobile travel, and our ability to predict weather. Wind is air with velocity. Given that mass multiplied by velocity is a measure of momentum, wind can also be referred to as air with momentum. Through its velocity the wind is coupled to “forces” that drive or resist its flow, such as pressure and friction, respectively. Instabilities in the atmospheric flow develop as these forces work against one another, causing gustiness, or more formally, turbulence. Turbulence reflects departures in the velocity vectors of the wind from their mean values. Turbulence represents a variance about the mean velocity. Turbulent departures from the mean wind flow are complex and not currently subject to precise mathematical description, as stated in the humorous quip reprinted above from the renowned atmospheric physicist, Theodore von Kármán. The transport of mass, energy, and momentum in the atmosphere occur through both the mean and turbulent components of the wind. Thus, in order to understand atmospheric transport, we must develop an understanding of the wind.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Terrestrial Biosphere-Atmosphere Fluxes , pp. 296 - 326Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014