A recent pragmatic blending approach treats sub-grid turbulent mixing using a weighted average of a 1D mesoscale model and a 3D Smagorinsky formulation. Here the approach is modified and extended to incorporate a scale-dependent dynamic Smagorinsky scheme instead of a static Smagorinsky scheme. Results from simulating an evolving convective boundary layer show that the new scheme is able to improve the representation of turbulence statistics and potential temperature profiles at grey-zone resolutions during the transition from the shallow morning to the deep afternoon boundary layer. This is achieved mainly because the new scheme enables and controls an improved spin-up of resolved turbulence. The dynamic blending scheme is shown to be more adaptive to the evolving flow and somewhat less sensitive to the blending parameters. The new approach appears to offer a more robust and more flexible formulation of blending and the results strongly encourage further assessment and development.
KEYWORDSboundary-layer scheme, dynamic turbulence model, grey zone, sub-grid parametrization 1 the resolved scales. This approach is common in performing large-eddy simulations (LESs), and such simulations have proved valuable for our understanding of boundary-layer (BL) turbulence and for developing BL parametrizations suitable for NWP. However, if the dominant turbulence length-scales are similar to the grid scale, then models will partially resolve the dominant modes of BL turbulence. These resolutions comprise the terra incognita or the grey zone of BL turbu-This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.