2012/07/09 by Alex Skvortsov, Milan Jamriska, Timothy C. DuBois +1 · 4 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advection #Atmospheric sciences #Buoyancy #Convection #Convective mixing #Dispersion (optics) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Geometry #Layer (electronics) #Materials science #Mechanics #Meteorology #Optics #Particle Dynamics in Fluid Flows #Physics #Scaling #Stratification (seeds) #Surface layer #TRACER #Thermodynamics #Turbulence #Wind and Air Flow Studies #nlin.CD #physics.ao-ph #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1175/jas-d-12-0268.1
published in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 70(12), 4112-4121 (American Meteorological Society) · 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table
arxiv created 2012/07/09 · openalex publication_date 2013/07/29 · arxiv updated 2014/08/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Experimental results for passive tracer dispersion in the turbulent surface layer under convective conditions are presented. In this case, the dispersion of tracer particles is determined by the interplay of two mechanisms: buoyancy and advection. In the atmospheric surface layer under unstable stratification the buoyancy mechanism dominates when the distance from the ground is greater than the Monin–Obukhov length, resulting in a different exponent in the scaling law for relative separation of Lagrangian particles (a deviation from the celebrated Richardson's law). This conclusion is supported by atmospheric observations. Exit-time statistics and a probability density function of concentration increments derived from a previously published experimental dataset demonstrate a noticeable difference between tracer dispersion in the convective and neutrally stratified surface layers.