Scaling Properties of Atmospheric Wind Speed in Mesoscale Range

Abstract

The scaling properties of turbulent flows are well established in the inertial sub-range. However, those of the synoptic-scale motions are less known, also because of the difficult analysis of data presenting nonstationary and periodic features. Extensive analysis of experimental wind speed data, collected at the Mauna Loa Observatory of Hawaii, is performed using different methods. Empirical Mode Decomposition, interoccurrence times statistics, and arbitrary-order Hilbert spectral analysis allow to eliminate effects of large-scale modulations, and provide scaling properties of the field fluctuations (Hurst exponent, interoccurrence distribution, and intermittency correction). The obtained results suggest that the mesoscale wind dynamics owns features which are typical of the inertial sub-range turbulence, thus extending the validity of the turbulent cascade phenomenology to scales larger than observed before.