Atmospheric turbulence within and above an Amazon forest

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the impact of a rain forest canopy on the statistical characteristics of atmospheric turbulence. This issue is of particular interest for understanding on how the Amazon terrestrial biosphere interact with the atmosphere. For this, we used a probability density function model of velocity and temperature differences based on Tsallis' non-extensive thermostatistics. We compared theoretical results with experimental data measured in a 66 m micrometeorological tower, during the wet-season campaign of the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA). Particularly, we investigated how the value of the entropic parameter is affected when one moves into the canopy, or when one passes from day/unstable to night/stable conditions. We show that this new approach provides interesting insights on turbulence in a complex environment such as the Amazon forest.