Microscale meteorology or micrometeorology is the study of short-lived
atmospheric phenomena smaller than
mesoscale, about or less. These two branches of
meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
are sometimes grouped together as "mesoscale and microscale meteorology" (MMM) and together study all phenomena smaller than
synoptic scale; that is they study features generally too small to be depicted on a standard
weather map
A weather map, also known as synoptic weather chart, displays various meteorological features across a particular area at a particular point in time and has various symbols which all have specific meanings. Such maps have been in use since the mi ...
. These include small and generally fleeting cloud "puffs" and other small cloud features.
Microscale meteorology controls the most important mixing and dilution processes in the atmosphere.
Important topics in microscale meteorology include
heat transfer
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy ( heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conducti ...
and
gas exchange
Gas exchange is the physical process by which gases move passively by diffusion across a surface. For example, this surface might be the air/water interface of a water body, the surface of a gas bubble in a liquid, a gas-permeable membrane, or a ...
between soil, vegetation, and/or surface water and the atmosphere caused by near-ground
turbulence. Measuring these transport processes involves use of micrometeorological (or flux) towers. Variables often measured or derived include net
radiation,
sensible heat flux,
latent heat flux, ground heat storage, and fluxes of
trace gases
Trace gases are gases that are present in small amounts within an environment such as a planet's atmosphere. Trace gases in Earth's atmosphere are gases other than nitrogen (78.1%), oxygen (20.9%), and argon (0.934%) which, in combination, make ...
important to the
atmosphere,
biosphere, and
hydrosphere
The hydrosphere () is the combined mass of water found on, under, and above the surface of a planet, minor planet, or natural satellite. Although Earth's hydrosphere has been around for about 4 billion years, it continues to change in shape. This ...
.
A micronet is an atmospheric and/or
environmental
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scal ...
observation network, composed of
automated weather stations, used to monitor microscale phenomena. Micronets are sometimes considered a subtype of
mesonet, and many micronets are a denser spatial resolution sub-network of a mesonet.
See also
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Eddy covariance
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FLUXNET
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Microscale and macroscale models
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Misoscale meteorology
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Spatial scale
Spatial scale is a specific application of the term scale for describing or categorizing (e.g. into orders of magnitude) the size of a space (hence ''spatial''), or the extent of it at which a phenomenon or process occurs.
For instance, in phy ...
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Surface weather analysis
Surface weather analysis is a special type of weather map that provides a view of weather elements over a geographical area at a specified time based on information from ground-based weather stations.
Weather maps are created by plotting or tra ...
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Wind engineering
References
;Bibliography
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