Derivation of turbulent energy dissipation rate with the Middle Atmosphere Alomar Radar System (MAARSY) and radiosondes at Andøya, Norway

• Main Authors: Li, Qiang, Rapp, Markus, Schrön, Anne, Schneider, Andreas, Stober, Gunter
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: München : European Geopyhsical Union 2016
• Subjects: Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics middle atmosphere dynamics; turbulence; waves and tides; 530; Alomar; Andøya; Norway
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.34657/1447; https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/4026

We present the derivation of turbulent energy dissipation rate ε from a total of 522 days of observations with the Middle Atmosphere Alomar Radar SYstem (MAARSY) mesosphere–stratosphere–troposphere (MST) radar running tropospheric experiments during the period of 2010–2013 as well as with balloon-borne radiosondes based on a campaign in the summer 2013. Spectral widths are converted to ε after the removal of the broadening effects due to the finite beam width of the radar. With the simultaneous in situ measurements of ε with balloon-borne radiosondes at the MAARSY radar site, we compare the ε values derived from both techniques and reach an encouraging agreement between them. Using all the radar data available, we present a preliminary climatology of atmospheric turbulence in the UTLS (upper troposphere and lower stratosphere) region above the MAARSY site showing a variability of more than 5 orders of magnitude inherent in turbulent energy dissipation rates. The derived ε values reveal a log-normal distribution with a negative skewness, and the ε profiles show an increase with height which is also the case for each individual month. Atmospheric turbulence based on our radar measurements reveals a seasonal variation but no clear diurnal variation in the UTLS region. Comparison of ε with the gradient Richardson number Ri shows that only 1.7 % of all the data with turbulence occur under the condition of Ri 1. Further, there is a roughly negative correlation between ε and Ri that is independent of the scale dependence of Ri. Turbulence under active dynamical conditions (velocity of horizontal wind U > 10 m s−1) is significantly stronger than under quiet conditions (U