Some observations of vertical velocity skewness in the convective planetary boundary layer

Abstract

We examine w-skewness profiles from data collected in other experiments. We find that skewness profiles in the three highly convective cases with the fewest and smallest clouds agree better with the large eddy simulation results than other profiles presented here and previously; however the deficit at the top of the boundary layer - though smaller - remains. We hypothesize that the remaining deficit for these 3 cases results from the presence of ~10km wavelength quasi 2D sinusoidal structure, which have near-zero skewness. The small domain and periodic boundary conditions of a large eddy simulation may not allow such structures to develop fully. We speculate that these structures result from gravity waves interacting with the boundary layer. -from Author