ESTIMATING CONVECTIVE ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY-LAYER DEPTH FROM MICROWAVERADAR IMAGERY OF THE SEA-SURFACE

Kilometer-scale mottling seen on real and synthetic aperture radar ima gery of the sea surface can be linked to the presence of microscale ce llular convection (thermals) spanning the marine atmospheric boundary layer. In the current study, it is hypothesized that the typical scale of the mottling, found via standard Fourier spectral analysis, can be used to estimate the depth of the convective marine atmospheric bound ary layer (z(i)) using a modified form of traditional mixed-layer simi larity theory for these thermals' aspect ratio. The hypothesis linking the typical scare of mottling to z(i) is substantiated using previous ly published boundary layer results and supporting meteorological and oceanographic data from a number of case studies.