Structure of Turbulence in Katabatic Flows Below and Above the Wind-Speed Maximum

Measurements of small-scale turbulence made in the atmospheric boundary layer over complex terrain during the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations (MATERHORN) Program are used to describe the structure of turbulence in katabatic flows. Turbulent and mean meteorological data were continuously measured on four towers deployed along the east lower slope (2\u20134 18) of Granite Mountain near Salt Lake City in Utah, USA. The multi-level (up to seven) observations made during a 30-day long MATERHORN field campaign in September\u2013October 2012 allowed the study of temporal and spatial structure of katabatic flows in detail, and herein we report turbulence statistics (e.g., fluxes, variances, spectra, and cospectra) and their variations in katabatic flow. Observed vertical profiles show steep gradients near the surface, but in the layer above the slope jet the vertical variability is smaller. It is found that the vertical (normal to the slope) momentum flux and horizontal (along-slope) heat flux in a slope-following coordinate system change their sign below and above the wind maximum of a katabatic flow. The momentum flux is directed downward (upward) whereas the along-slope heat flux is downslope (upslope) below (above) the wind maximum. This suggests that the position of the jet-speed maximum can be obtained by linear interpolation between positive and negative values of the momentum flux (or the along-slope heat flux) to derive the height where the flux becomes zero. It is shown that the standard deviations of all wind-speed components (and therefore of the turbulent kinetic energy) and the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy have a local minimum, whereas the standard deviation of air temperature has an absolute maximum at the height of wind-speed maximum. We report several cases when the destructive effect of vertical heat flux is completely cancelled by the generation of turbulence due to the along-slope heat flux. Turbulence above the wind-speed maximum is decoupled from the surface, and follows the classical local z-less predictions for the stably stratified boundary laye