A statistical-mechanical approach to study the hydrodynamic stability of stably stratified atmospheric boundary layer

Abstract

We study the hydrodynamic equilibrium properties of the stably stratified atmospheric boundary layer from measurements obtained in the Snow-Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (SnoHATS) campaign at the Plaine Morte Glacier in the Swiss Alps. Our approach is based on a combination of dynamical systems techniques and statistical analysis. The main idea is to measure the deviations from the behavior expected by a turbulent observable when it is close to a transition between different metastable states. We first assess the performance of our method on the Lorenz attractor, then on a turbulent flow. The results show that the method recognizes subtle differences among different stable boundary layers turbulence regimes and may be used to help characterise their transitions.