Convection in the Lower Atmosphere

Abstract

From the observations of Warner and Telford (1963, 1967), it would appear that fair-weather daytime conditions can produce a field of isotropically packed convection cells in the lower atmosphere. It is argued here that turbulence plays an insignificant role in the mechanics of one such cell, whose horizontal extent is small compared with its height. Thus a simple model of a convection cell is developed, and the predictions of this model are apparently consistent with the observations in the atmosphere.