Homogeneous Stationary Planetary Layers

Abstract

We have previously defined the planetary boundary layer (PBL), also known as the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), as the entire layer of the atmosphere that has its properties directly influenced by contact with the earth’s underlying surface. Though some turbulence occurs from time to time in the free atmosphere, the fluxes that we have been concerned with are primarily due to interactions with the earth’s surface, and their values decrease in magnitude Co near zero at the top of the PBL. While we have found it possible to ignore the vertical variation of flux with height in the surface layer, however, we cannot do so in the more extended upper or outer portion of the PBL.