Experimental evidence of a phase transition in the multifractal spectra of turbulent temperature fluctuations at a forest canopy top
Résumé
Ramp-cliff patterns visible in scalar turbulent time series have long been suspected to enhance the fine-scale intermittency of scalar fluctuations compared to longitudinal velocity fluctuations. Here, we use the wavelet transform modulus maxima method to perform a multifractal analysis of air temperature time series collected at a pine forest canopy top for different atmospheric stability regimes. We show that the multifractal spectra exhibit a phase transition as the signature of the presence of strong singularities corresponding to sharp temperature drops (respectively jumps) bordering the so-called ramp (respectively inverted ramp) cliff patterns commonly observed in unstable (respectively stable) atmospheric conditions and previously suspected to contaminate and possibly enhance the internal intermittency of (scalar) temperature fluctuations. Under unstable (respectively stable) atmospheric conditions, these ‘cliff’ singularities are indeed found to be hierarchically distributed on a ‘Cantor-like’ set surrounded by singularities of weaker strength typical of intermittent temperature fluctuations observed in homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. Under near-neutral conditions, no such a phase transition is observed in the temperature multifractal spectra, which is a strong indication that the statistical contribution of the ‘cliffs’ is not important enough to account for the stronger intermittency of temperature fluctuations when compared to corresponding longitudinal velocity fluctuations.
