ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY LAYER RESEARCH AT CABAUW

The Cabauw mast is located in the western part of the Netherlands (51.971 øN, 4.927 øE) in a polder 0.7 m below average sealevel. This site was chosen, because it is rather representative for this part of the Netherlands and because only minor landscape developments were planned in this region. Indeed the present surroundings of Cabauw do not differ significantly from those in 1972. The North Sea is more than 50 km away to the WNW. The nearby region is agricultural, and surface elevation changes are at most a few metres over 20 km.
Near the mast, the terrain is open pasture for at least 400 m in all directions, and in the WSW direction for 2 km. Farther away, the landscape is generally very open in the West sector, while the distant East sector is rather rough (windbreaks, orchards, low houses). The distant North and South sectors are mixed landscapes, much pasture and some windbreaks. So the highest mast levels have in all directions a long fetch of landscape roughness which is usefully similar to the roughness observed in the lower surface layer. On the mast itself no undisturbed measurements can be made below 20 m. Auxiliary 20 m masts are installed to the SE and the NW at sufficient distance from the mast foot building. South of the mast is a well-kept observation field for micrometeorological observations, including soil heat flux, soil temperatures and various radiation measurements; north of the mast is a spare observation field. The soil consists of 0.6 m of river-clay, overlying a thick layer of peat. The water table is about 1 m below the surface, but can be higher during wet periods. For further information see the website of (Fred Bosveld)