RESUMO
In 2022, Houston, TX became a nexus for field campaigns aiming to further our understanding of the feedbacks between convective clouds, aerosols and atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) properties. Houston's proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay motivated the collection of spatially distributed observations to disentangle coastal and urban processes. This paper presents a value-added ABL dataset derived from observations collected by eight research teams over 46 days between 2 June - 18 September 2022. The dataset spans 14 sites distributed within a ~80-km radius around Houston. Measurements from three types of instruments are analyzed to objectively provide estimates of nine ABL parameters, both thermodynamic (potential temperature, and relative humidity profiles and thermodynamic ABL depth) and dynamic (horizontal wind speed and direction, mean vertical velocity, updraft and downdraft speed profiles, and dynamical ABL depth). Contextual information about cloud occurrence is also provided. The dataset is prepared on a uniform time-height grid of 1 h and 30 m resolution to facilitate its use as a benchmark for forthcoming numerical simulations and the fundamental study of atmospheric processes.
RESUMO
The impact skyscrapers have on wind flow remains poorly characterized, thus affecting atmospheric dispersion predictions in dense urban centers. A new mobile observatory equipped with remote sensors controlled by a smart sampling protocol was developed to collect high-resolution (18 m, 15 s) observations throughout the atmospheric layer below 1.5 km. A series of four deployments was performed around the One Vanderbilt skyscraper (H1 = 427 m) located in Manhattan, NY to document wind flow and temperature in canyons with relatively high width-to-depth ratios (H2/W ~ 1.2-7.5; H2 being the height of the adjacent building) and steepness (H1/H2= 2.1-11.2) and that under a range of inflow wind and solar heating conditions. A series of flow features were common to all case studies with head-on winds. A stagnation point was observed 2/3 of the way up the impeded portion of the One Vanderbilt, pointing to the importance of the upwind building height in controlling vertical air flow. In the canyons parallel to the flow, three sets of mirroring counterrotating vortices were detected pointing to the fact that H2 is not as important a parameter in controlling flow in canyons parallel to the inflow wind. Plumes of rapidly rising air were detected near building heat vents under both 10 m s-1 and 3 m s-1 inflow wind conditions, at night and in the morning respectively. This suggests that anthropogenic heat may be an important energy source especially in the absence of solar heating. In the presence of solar heating, a systematic tendency for upward flow was observed above H1. We associate this pattern to the presence of rising thermals, a common mechanism for planetary boundary layer growth. Below H2, complete flow reversal (relative to mechanically driven circulations) was detected ~20 % of the time, showing evidence of dominant thermal effects even under 7 m s-1 inflow wind conditions.