Examining Parameterizations of Potential Temperature Variance Across Varied Landscapes for use in Earth System Models

Abstract

The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) plays a fundamental role in the climate system due to its significance in bridging land surface fluxes of heat and water vapor to convection and cloud formation (Garratt, 1992;Huang & Margulis, 2010;Siqueira et al., 2009). The ABL is characterized by the coexistence of mechanically and thermally generated turbulence, which regulates mixing and transport properties and exchanges between the land surface and the lower atmosphere. The variances of turbulent quantities are of particular interest due to their emerging role in state-of-the-science Earth System Models (ESMs) and numerical weather prediction. They have accordingly received attention in the literature, although most of these studies have focused on the velocity variances. Comparatively few examine the potential temperature variance (PTV) and those that do often focus on flat homogeneous terrain (