Turbulence anisotropy carried by streaks in the neutral atmospheric surface layer

The authors investigate the relationships between coherent structures and turbulence anisotropy in the neutral planetary boundary layer by means of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis of large-eddy simulation (LES) data. The simulated flow contains near-surface transient streaks. The EOF analysis extracts the most energetic patterns from the velocity fluctuations based on their second-order spatial correlations. The scale and direction of streaks obtained from a level-by-level analysis of the LES flow field do correspond to that of the EOFs. It is found that two characteristics of the turbulence anisotropy depend on whether or not the velocity fluctuations with a given horizontal wave vector present distinct patterns: (i) the vertical extent up to which the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) is concentrated and (ii) the ratio of the vertical TKE E(V) to the horizontal TKE E(H). Although still present in the complete signal, this anisotropy is strongly emphasized when the signal is projected onto the EOF structures. Hence the coherent structures do indeed carry more anisotropy than the remaining turbulent fluctuations. Furthermore, at horizontal wave vectors where energetic patterns are dominant, the ratio E(V)/E(H) takes values close to 0.2, representative of the ratio E(V)/E(H) based on the total LES flow and on in situ measurements.