Nocturnal boundary layer turbulence regimes analysis during the BLLAST campaign

Abstract. A night-time turbulence regime classification, the so-called HOckey-Stick Transition (HOST) theory, proposed by Sun et al. (2012) from the Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study 1999 (CASES-99) is explored using data from the Boundary-Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence (BLLAST) field campaign which took place during the summer 2011 in the north of the central French Pyrenean foothills. Results show that the HOST turbulence relationships for the BLLAST field campaign data is strongly dependent on both the meteorological and orographic features. The HOST pattern only appears for nights when a stably stratified boundary layer can be developed, corresponding to fair weather and clear sky nights, when the flow is generated by the nearby orography, from the south and southeast directions. Those flows strongly influenced by the orography may generate intermittent or enhanced turbulence. When considering the whole dataset for these flow directions, several enhanced turbulence points are found to be associated with sudden wind speed and directional shear transitions. In contrast, flows from other directions do not reproduce the HOST relationship and the turbulence relationship is almost linear, independent of the vertical temperature gradients, corresponding to flows driven by mesoscale or synoptic scales. In addition we identify examples of gravity waves and top-down turbulent events that lead to transitions between the turbulence regimes.