A Surface-Layer Study of the Transport and Dissipation of Turbulent Kinetic Energy and the Variances of Temperature, Humidity and CO[Formula: see text]

We discuss scalar similarities and dissimilarities based on analysis of the dissipationterms in the variance budget equations, considering the turbulent kinetic energyand the variances of temperature, specific humidity and specific CO[Formula: see text] content. For this purpose, 124 high-frequency sampled segments are selected from the Boundary Layer Late Afternoon and SunsetTurbulence experiment. The consequences of dissipationsimilarity in the variance transport are also discussed and quantified. The results show that, for the convective atmospheric surface layer, the non-dimensional dissipationterms can be expressed in the framework of Monin–Obukhov similarity theoryand are independent of whether the variable is temperature or moisture. The scalar similarity in the dissipationterm implies that the characteristic scales of the atmospheric surface layercan be estimated from the respective rate of variance dissipation, the characteristic scaleof temperature, and the dissipationrate of temperature variance.