Anomalous scaling of mesoscale tropospheric humidity
fluctuations
Water vapor fluctuations are measured and analyzed at an unprecedented
10-m resolution throughout the troposphere. Computation of structure
functions shows that specific humidity variations observed by research
aircraft over the Pacific Ocean exhibit anomalous scaling from about
50 m to 100 km in horizontal range. The scaling laws show different
characteristics for the marine boundary layer, the tropical free
troposphere, and the extratropical free troposphere. More
specifically, boundary-layer humidity fluctuations are less smooth and
more stationary than those in the free troposphere, while the
extratropical free tropospheric variations are less intermittent than
those in the other two regions. The anomalous scaling results argue
against passive advection by a spatially smooth flow (chaotic
advection) at these scales.
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