Thermally-driven mesoscale flows and their interaction with atmospheric boundary layer turbulence

  1. Arrillaga Mitxelena, Jon Ander
Supervised by:
  1. Jordi Vilá-Guerau de Arellano Director
  2. Carlos Yagüe Anguis Director

Defence university: Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Fecha de defensa: 11 January 2019

Committee:
  1. Gregorio Maqueda Burgos Chair
  2. Elsa Mohino Harris Secretary
  3. Samuel Viana Committee member
  4. Maria Antònia Jiménez Cortés Committee member
  5. Marie Lothon Committee member
Department:
  1. Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica

Type: Thesis

Teseo: 149187 DIALNET lock_openDocta Complutense editor

Abstract

Atmospheric motions are classified according to their spatial and time scales from largest to smallest into macroscales, mesoscales and microscales. Among mesoscale motions we find the thermally-driven flows, which are driven by horizontal thermal contrasts in scales between around 1 and 100–200 km, and occur in the form of closed circulations. They have a critical role in transferring energy between the macroscales and microscales. In this thesis we investigate sea breezes (SBs) and mountain breezes(MBs). Apart from being ubiquitous, they play a fundamental role in the complex turbulent decay during the afternoon and evening transition (AET) of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). Intimately linked with the interaction between mesoscale flowsand ABL turbulence, relevant scalars such as CO2 can also be significantly affected by the onset of thermally-driven circulations. Mesoscale models such as Weather Research& Forecasting (WRF) have shown deficiencies in reproducing the turbulent decay during the AET and the influence of mesoscale flows on the CO2 budget...