Definition
Slope winds result from the diurnal cycle of heating and cooling of the planetary boundary layer along elevated terrain. Daytime anabatic winds flow upslope, whereas at night, katabatic winds flow downslope.
Introduction
Diurnal mountain winds are generated by insolation of the planetary boundary layer during the daytime and longwave emission-driven cooling during nighttime. This heating(cooling) produces horizontal temperature gradients between air above heated (cooled) topography and the air in valleys (Barry 2008). These turbulent flows represent the lower branch of a closed thermally direct circulation resulting from inclined heated or cooled planetary boundary layers that form above topography in a stratified atmosphere (Shapiro and Fedorovich 2008). Due to this thermal forcing, these winds are also commonly referred to as thermally driven winds....
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Hatchett, B.J., Kaplan, M.L., Nauslar, N.J., Smith, C.M., Nelson, K. (2019). Slope Winds. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_209-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_209-1
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