Atmospheric boundary layer characteristics during the BOBMEX-Pilot experiment

Abstract

The atmospheric boundary layer characteristics observed during the BOBMEX-Pilot experiment are reported. Surface meteorological data were acquired continuously through an automatic weather monitoring system and manually every three hours. High resolution radiosondes were launched to obtain the vertical thermal structure of the atmosphere. The study area was convectively active, the SSTs were high, surface air was warm and moist, and the surface air moist static energy was among the highest observed over the tropical oceans. The mean sea air temperature difference was about 1.25°C and the sea skin temperature was cooler than bucket SST by 0.5°C. The atmospheric mixed layer was shallow, fluctuated in response to synoptic conditions from 100 m to 900 m with a mean around 500 m.