Searching chaos and coherent structures in the atmospheric turbulence above the Amazon forest

Abstract

In this work, the possible chaotic nature of the atmospheric turbulence above a densely forested area in the Amazon region is investigated. To this end, we use high-resolution temperature data obtained during a micrometeorological measurement campaign in the Brazilian Amazonia. Estimates of the correlation dimension ( D 2 =3.50±0.05) and of the largest Lyapunov exponent ( λ 1 =0.050±0.002) suggest the existence of chaos in the atmospheric boundary layer. Our findings indicate that this low-dimensional chaotic dynamics is associated with the presence of the coherent structures within the boundary layer right above the canopy top and not with the atmospheric turbulence per se , as previously claimed.