Visualization of surface heat transfer around the Jungfraujoch using thermal imaging – a project by Dr. Nicolas Bukowiecki, University of Basel, Department of Environmental Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences
The characterization of the wind fields, turbulences and eddies around the Sphinx has been of wide interest of the atmospheric research performed at the Jungfraujoch, because the in-situ measurements performed are strongly influenced by these local phenomena. The goal of this project is to obtain movies of the visualized turbulence eddies and surface heat fluxes around the Sphinx and to link these movies to highly time resolved aerosol particle number concentration measurements in a next step.
Movies: Nicolas Bukowiecki, Pascal Müller
The movies show minimal temperature changes on the surface (plus/minus 1 oC), which are caused by heat transfer with wind movements close to the ground. Around the Jungfraujoch, these winds are mainly strong turbulences, as can be clearly seen in the movie. In the movie, white color means that the ground is slightly warmed by the wind and blue means that the ground is slightly cooled.
A high-frequency infrared camera is used for the measurements. The shown surface temperature differences are obtained from the sequence of recorded thermal images by statistical decomposition.