Eddies in motion: visualizing boundary-layer turbulence above an open boreal peatland using UAS thermal videos

Abstract

Abstract. High-resolution thermal infrared (TIR) imaging is opening up new vistas in biosphere–atmosphere heat exchange studies. The rapidly developing unmanned aerial systems (UASs) and specially designed cameras offer opportunities for TIR survey with increasingly high resolution, reduced geometric and radiometric noise, and prolonged flight times. A state-of-the-art science platform is assembled using a Matrice 210 V2 drone equipped with a Zenmuse XT2 thermal camera and deployed over a pristine boreal peatland with the aim of testing its performance in a heterogeneous sedge-fen ecosystem. The study utilizes the capability of the UAS platform to hover for prolonged times (about 20 min) at a height of 500 m a.g.l. while recording high frame rate (30 Hz) TIR videos of an area of ca. 430 × 340 m. A methodology is developed to derive thermal signatures of near-ground coherent turbulent structures impinging on the land surface, surface temperature spectra, and heat fluxes from the retrieved videos. The size, orientation, and movement of the coherent structures are computed from the surface temperature maps, and their dependency on atmospheric conditions is examined. A range of spectral and wavelet-based approaches are used to infer the properties of the dominant turbulent scene structures. A ground-based eddy-covariance system and an in situ meteorological setup are used for reference.