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Turbulent Transport of Carbon Dioxide over a Highly Vegetated Suburban Neighbourhood

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Abstract

The complexities involved in the turbulent transport of \({\mathrm {CO}}_{2}\) in an urban area are investigated using data from a 40-m-tall flux tower located in suburban Salt Lake Valley, UT, USA. We found that the transport of \({\mathrm {CO}}_{2}\) in the urban inertial sublayer is very much influenced by non-local effects and conflicting mechanisms that resulted in the multi-scale transport of fluxes at disparate scales. During the day when the site acts as a net sink of \({\mathrm {CO}}_{2}\), positive fluxes are observed at the low frequency end of the vertical velocity \({\mathrm {CO}}_{2}\) cospectrum. This behaviour is in stark contrast to that of other scalars: water vapour and heat. We also found that, unlike forest and crop ecosystems, the urban \({\mathrm {CO}}_{2}\) (co)spectra (power spectra and cospectra) are characterized by multiple peaks and long plateaus. The analysis also found that large-scale advective processes influence the turbulent transport of \({\mathrm {CO}}_{2}\) during stable periods.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based in part on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants ATM 0215768 and CBET 0828214. The authors would like to thank Jaikiran Sivasamudram, Dr Scott Speckart and Dr Holly Oldroyd for helping with the experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The City College of New York, New York, NY, 10021, USA

    Prathap Ramamurthy

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Eric R. Pardyjak

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  1. Prathap Ramamurthy
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  2. Eric R. Pardyjak
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Correspondence to Prathap Ramamurthy.

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Ramamurthy, P., Pardyjak, E.R. Turbulent Transport of Carbon Dioxide over a Highly Vegetated Suburban Neighbourhood. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 157, 461–479 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-015-0074-0

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