An Experimental Study of the Statistical Scaling of Turbulent Surface Pressure in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) produces fluctuations in the static pressure. The instantaneous pressure at a point depends on an integral over the entire flow; therefore, the effects from turbulence far aloft may be felt at the earth's surface. The statistics of fluctuating pressure at the surface have been studied extensively in the context of wall-bounded engineering-type flows. At best, these neutral flows are a special case of the thermally-stratified ABL, but relatively few experimental studies have considered pressure at the ground under various stability conditions. Here the scaling of pressure statistics at the surface, particularly the spectral density, is reported over a range of convective and stable conditions for both inner and outer turbulence parameters. Measurements of turbulent surface pressure were made using low-frequency microphones buried flush to the ground in a field near Laramie, Wyoming. Simultaneous measurements from three near-surface sonic anemometers and a 50-meter wind tower give estimates of the mean surface-layer parameters. The normalization of the pressure spectrum with the inner scales collapses the spectra along the high-frequency viscous power-law band. The wall shear stress, Obukhov length, L, and horizontal integral scale, λ, are identified as outer scaling parameters for the surface pressure spectrum from an integral solution employing a Monin-Obukhov-similar profile and a simple model of inhomogeneous surface-layer turbulence. Normalization with the outer scales collapses the spectra at low frequencies. Spectral scaling also reveals trends with λ/L in the low-frequency region for both convective and stable boundary layers.