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Abstract This work studies the evolution of turbulence in a Stable Boundary Layer (SBL) in Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) when a synthetic turbulence field of velocity and temperature is used as initial condition and as well as precursor. Following common approaches found in the literature, initial fields of different characteristics are created and their evolution in the LES is evaluated in order to assess the ability of the synthetically generated turbulence to represent a snapshot of SBL turbulence. The study is carried out with two modelling cases, a forested site as well as the GABLS benchmark 4. In both cases, the usage of a turbulent SBL as an initial condition proved advantageous to reach a faster convergence presenting an opportunity for computational savings. Yet, the very different turbulence conditions of the modelling setups produce varying results with regard to the type of velocity and temperature fluctuations. Likewise, the usage of a precursor was shown able to represent the flow in a successor LES although with varying reliability, dependent on the background turbulence and the stratification level, that suppresses velocity fluctuations and could lead to the misrepresentation of turbulence level.
Olivares-Espinosa et al. (Sat,) studied this question.