Colloquium Advances in Hydrology and Water Management

The Hydrology & Quantitative Watermanagement group announces that Prof. Marc Parlange (Johns Hopkins University) will give a colloquium on

Simulating land - atmosphere interactions: The importance of small scales in Large Eddy Simulation: experiment and application

When: Tuesday 20 May 2003, 15:00
Where: Collegezaal De Nieuwlanden, Nieuwe kanaal 11, Wageningen

Marc Parlange is well known scientist in his field.

Advances in Hydrology and Water Management
23th Colloquium

Simulating land - atmosphere interactions: The importance of small scales in Large Eddy Simulation: experiment and application

Prof. Dr. Marc Parlange
Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, USA.
Large Eddy Simulation (LES) has become an important technique for studying the interactions between complex landscapes and the atmospheric boundary layer. In particular, we are interested in the application of LES to understand the connections between the patchy landscape (e.g. due to vegetation and topography) and the structure of the lower atmosphere. One of the primary challenges to simulating the unsteady turbulent three-dimensional flow in the lower atmosphere is how one represents the small-scale turbulence with models. This talk will highlight field experimental efforts to understand the small-scale physics and present an application of LES, using new generation parameterizations, to obtain information on the lower atmosphere and the underlying land surface over heterogeneous terrain. We apply the Johns Hopkins Large Eddy Simulation to develop relationships between the blending layer height and surface length scales. We then go on to develop a simple relation that can be used to estimate regional scale surface roughness from local patch roughnesses.

For more information please contact Annemarie Hofs.