Abstract
The Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) is applied to analyzing the turbulent time series obtained within the atmospheric boundary layer over the ocean. A method based on the HHT is introduced to reduce the influence of non-turbulent motions on the eddy-covariance based flux by removing non-turbulent modes from the time series. The scale dependence of the flux is examined and a gap mode is identified to distinguish between turbulent modes and non-turbulent modes. To examine the effectiveness of this method it is compared with three conventional methods (block average, moving-window average, and multi-resolution decomposition). The data used are from three sonic anemometers installed on a moored buoy at about 6, 4 and 2.7 m height above the sea surface. For each method, along-wind and cross-wind momentum fluxes and sensible heat fluxes at the three heights are calculated. According to the assumption of a constant-flux layer, there should be no significant difference between the fluxes at the three heights. The results show that the fluxes calculated using HHT exhibit a smaller difference and higher correlation than the other methods. These results support the successful application of HHT to the estimation of air-sea turbulent fluxes.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Nos. 2011CB403501 and 2012CB417402), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41176016), and the Open Research Foundation for the Key Laboratory of Ocean Circulation and Waves, Chinese Academy of Science (KLOCAW1207).
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Wang, J., Song, J., Huang, Y. et al. Application of the Hilbert–Huang Transform to the Estimation of Air-Sea Turbulent Fluxes. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 147, 553–568 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-012-9784-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-012-9784-8