Intermittency of surface layer wind velocity series in the mesoscale range

TL;DR

This paper investigates the intermittent behavior of surface wind velocity series in the mesoscale range, revealing a universal cascade mechanism similar to laboratory turbulence, using magnitude covariance analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates that wind velocity fluctuations exhibit universal intermittency features and introduces magnitude covariance analysis as an effective tool for such studies.

Findings

Wind series show features similar to laboratory turbulence.

Evidence of a universal cascade mechanism in atmospheric boundary layer.

Magnitude covariance analysis outperforms classical methods.

Abstract

We study various time series of surface layer wind velocity at different locations and provide evidences for the intermittent nature of the wind fluctuations in mesoscale range. By means of the magnitude covariance analysis, which is shown to be a more efficient tool to study intermittency than classical scaling analysis, we find that all wind series exhibit similar features than those observed for laboratory turbulence. Our findings suggest the existence of a "universal" cascade mechanism associated with the energy transfer between synoptic motions and turbulent microscales in the atmospheric boundary layer.