About this Research Topic

Background

In recent years there have been a number of atmospheric experiments targeting complex flows found over moderate to complex terrain and within and above tall plant canopies. In these environments, it is difficult to measure and model the atmosphere on spatial scales necessary to resolve topography- and canopy-induced complex flow behaviour, including but not limited to katabatic/anabatic winds, valley-mountain flow reversals, non-logarithmic forest canopy profiles, and sub-canopy advection.

Field campaigns have benefited in recent years from advances in remote sensing platforms (e.g., wind Doppler lidars, radar profilers, thermodynamic profilers, ceilometers), uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), and tower-, tethered balloon- and weather balloon-in situ instrumentation. For example, we can now measure temperature at sub-meter scale over long distances using distributed temperature sensing (DTS) to resolve complex flow behaviour such as sub-canopy drainage flow, canopy flow decoupling, mountain drainage flows, and more. Scanning Doppler lidars allow for high resolution wind profiles of upslope/downslope flow and leeward flow reversals across distances out to 5 km or more. Vertically-profiling lidars also provide the wind profile over forest stands, forest edges, and hilltops allowing for new applications in biometeorology to help interpret ecosystem-atmosphere flux exchange processes as well as provide information about the wind resource for onshore wind turbines as they move into increasingly complex and heterogenous environments. Recent modelling studies spanning the range of scales from microscale large-eddy simulations (LES) to mesoscale weather simulations have made significant contributions to our understanding of complex flows. We are especially interested in model treatments of heterogeneous canopies, topography, and associated turbulent fluxes, as well as efficient parameterizations of these effects in mesoscale models. As such, we welcome recent modelling studies with a range of model and terrain complexities such as 1D models, idealized terrain models, or fully 3D, large-eddy simulations using real topography. Additionally new methods to represent the terrain or numerical grid for numerical atmospheric simulation, such as immersed boundary methods (IBM), are encouraged.

We welcome contributions that highlight recent field experiments and modelling simulations aiming to resolve complex flow features and their impacts on the atmosphere and environment. Novel insights and applications in the fields of boundary layer meteorology, biometeorology, turbulent land-atmosphere exchanges, atmospheric transport and diffusion, mountain meteorology, wildfire dynamics, and wind energy are especially welcome.

Encouraged themes include, but are not limited to:

• Recent field campaigns in complex terrain and/or complex canopies;
• Advancements in capturing complex flow behavior for studies in mountain meteorology, forest-atmosphere flux exchange processes, wind energy, and other applications;
• Novel uses of instrumentation and newly developed sensors;
• Simulation studies spanning LES to mesoscale and parameterization of heterogeneous canopies and complex topography in atmospheric models.

Keywords: mountain meteorology, forest meteorology, katabatic/anabatic flow, mountain/valley flow, non-logarithmic flow

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