Atmospheric Sciences 6220: Boundary Layer Meteorology

Atmospheric Sciences 6220
Boundary Layer Meteorology
Spring 2025

Syllabus 6220 (PDF)
In-Class Presentations
Day 1: Introduction Visualizations Articles
Day 2: Instabilities Instability criteria
Wed., Jan 15: No class. Read Length Scales in Turbulent Flows
Watch Fluid Dynamics movies: Instabilities.mov Turbulence.mov
Day 3: Bretherton Lecture 2: Turbulent Flow Length Scales in Turbulent Flows
Day 4: Bretherton Lecture 3: Turbulent Fluxes and TKE budgets Turbulent Kinetic Energy (Holton 5.2)
Day 5: Bretherton Lecture 4: Boundary Layer Structure Flux-Gradient Model (Holton 5.3) Diurnal Cycle
Day 6: Surface roughness and the logarithmic sublayer
Day 7: Monin-Obukov similarity theory Surface layer equations (summary)
Day 8: Monin-Obukov similarity theory (additions and review)
Day 9: Mixed Layer Winds Inertial Oscillation
Day 10: Ekman Layer Ekman layer spin-down (Holton 5.3 & 5.4)
Day 11: Bretherton Lecture 6: Turbulent Ekman Layer
Day 12: Bretherton Lecture 7: Stability and Baroclinicity Effects on BL Structure
Day 13: A Simple Turbulence Closure Model (and Cartesian Tensor Notation)
Day 14: Bretherton Lecture 8: Parameterization of BL Turbulence I (slides) (2013 lecture notes)
Day 15-16: Bretherton Lecture 9: Nonlocal BL parameterizations (2013 lecture notes)
Day 15: Nonlocal BL parameterization (EDMF); Convective Cold Pools
Day 16: Nonlocal BL parameterization (Countergradient Transport); Gustiness
Days 17-18: Bretherton Lecture 10: Surface Energy Balance

Days 19-20: Bretherton Lecture 11: Surface Evaporation

Notes for Bretherton Lecture 11

Bucket Model

Arya Ch 2 example problems

Day 21: Bretherton Lecture 12: The diurnal cycle and the nocturnal BL

Notes for Bretherton Lecture 12

Day 22: Bretherton Lecture 13: The stable BL

Day 23: Bretheron Lecture 14: Marine and cloud-topped boundary layers

Cloud-topped boundary layers

Conserved Variables

CTBL Thermodynamics

Day 24: Bretherton Lecture 15: Subtropical stratocumulus-capped BLs

Cloud-top Entrainment Instability

Bretherton lecture notes (Table of Contents and Errata)
Reading to accompany Bretherton lecture notes

Lect 1: Stull 1.1, 5.5-6, 5.10
Lect 2: Stull 1.2-4, 2.1-5, 8.1-2, 8.4.1, 8.6; Holton 5.1, movie on turbulence
Lect 3: Stull 3.1-5, 4.3.1, 5.1-2; Holton 5.1-3
Lect 4: Stull 6.1-3, 6.4.1-4, 1.6; Holton 5.3
Lect 5 and 6: Stull Ch 9; Arya Ch 10-11
Lect 7 (Buoyancy & Shear-driven BLs): Moeng and Sullivan (1994)
Lect 10 and 11 (Surface Energy Balance): Stull Ch 7; Arya Ch 2-4
Lect 12 (Mixed Layer Growth): Stull 11.2-4
Lect 13 (Stable BL): Stull 12.1-3
Lect's 14-17 (BL Clouds): Stull 13.1 (thermodynamics), 13.3 (entrainment), 13.4.1-2 (Cu), 13.5 (Sc), 13.6 (fog)

Additional Notes

Homework
- HW 1: Stull, problems 1.5, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.8, 5.3, 5.26 5.33 (due course day 6 = Jan 24, 2025)
- HW 2 on fluxes (due day 10 = Feb 7, 2025)

HW 3 on Monin-Obukhov theory (due day 14 = Feb 21, 2025)

Notes for HW

HW 4: Mixed layer winds (due day 18 = Mar 7, 2025)
▪ Matlab code: mixed_layer_wind1.m mixed_layer_wind2.m plots

HW 5 on soil temperature: Arya, Chap 4, problems 7, 8 (due day 22 = Mar 22, 2025)

MATLAB files for problem 4.7: read_soil_temp.m ONeill_soil_temperatures.dat mhdrload
Arya, sections 4.4 and 4.5: Contains Example Problem 2 (relevant to problem 7c) and Eq (4.4) (needed for problem 8).

HW 6 on spectral analysis (due day 26 = Apr 11, 2025)
- Assignment, notes on spectral analysis, and help for plotting your data in Matlab.
- Matlab help for spectral analysis exercise
- Aircraft data (rf18L1.txt, 3 MB) (rf18L1.txt.zip, 0.9 MB)
- Matlab script to find power spectral density of u and w (psduw.m)
- Matlab script to high-pass filter w (highpassw.m)

Boundary layer and turbulence visualizations

Key Bank building implosion and resulting dust cloud

References

Last updated Apr 11, 2025