Multifractal characterization of aircraft-based measurements of turbulence and passive scalar fields within the surface boundary layer

his thesis represents the first large-scale, systematic study to use the double trace moment (DTM) technique in order to characterize the universal multifractal nature of aircraft-based measurements of wind velocity and several passive scalar concentrations under a variety of ambient conditions. Power-law scaling behaviour was demonstrated for the examined fields, from the smallest accessible measurement scales up to at least 250 km, right through the "mesoscale gap" postulated by the standard model of atmospheric dynamics. DTM results indicate remarkable stability in the estimates of the multifractality index,...