Turbulence Generation in Breeze Circulation

Sea breezes, being of the most well studied mesoscale phenomena, are responsible for the disturbance of many meteorological values due to horizontal heterogeneity of the underlying surface in the coastal regions. Sea breezes impact the rate of turbulence exchange and turbulent regime of otherwise non-disturbed atmospheric layer, while creating its own distribution of turbulence energy near shoreline. This research considers influence of the breeze circulation phenomenon on the distribution of turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) using a two-dimensional non-hydrostatic model of the atmospheric boundary layer. The turbulence kinetic energy was introduced into the model to parameterize the turbulence coefficient. Different mathematical algorithms were incorporated into the model to enhance its prediction abilities. A series of experiments were conducted to obtain spatial distributions of dynamic characteristics. It is shown that turbulence in the planetary boundary layer is significantly enhanced due to the formation of breeze circulation in the presence of horizontal heterogeneity of the underlying surface.