Radiative cooling effects within and above the nocturnal boundary layer.

Abstract

For representative tropospheric profiles of water vapor, CO2 and temperature we have calculated in situ longwave radiative flux divergence for use in a simplified second-order closure model of nocturnal boundary-layer evolution. Radiative effects are greatest above the boundary layer where large gradient Richardson numbers are generated. Consequently, turbulence in this region decays rapidly after transition, while in the absence of such effects a much slower decay occurs.-from Authors