Home UK English roughness length

Meaning of roughness length in English:

roughness length

noun

Meteorology

  • A parameter used in representing the variation of horizontal wind speed with height immediately above the ground (or water surface), and typically corresponding to the unevenness of the surface; also "surface roughness length".

Origin

1930s; earliest use found in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. Translating German Linearabmessung der Rauhigkeiten (L. Prandtl 1932, in Beiträge zur Physik der Atmosphäre 19 190.