Observed diurnal cycle climatology of planetary boundary layer height

An observational climatology of the planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) diurnal cycle, specific to surface characteristics, is derived from 58 286 fine-resolution soundings collected in 14 major field campaigns around the world. An objective algorithmdetermining PBLHfrom sounding profiles is first developed and then verified by available lidar and sodar retrievals. The algorithmis robust and produces realistic PBLHas validated by visual examination of several thousand additional soundings. The resulting PBLH from all existing data is then subject to various statistical analyses. It is demonstrated that PBLH occurrence frequencies under stable, neutral, and unstable regimes follow a narrow, intermediate, and wide Gamma distribution, respectively, over both land and oceans. Over ice all exhibit a narrow distribution.The climatological PBLHdiurnal cycle is strong over land and oceans, with a distinct peak at 1500 and 1200 LT, whereas the cycle is weak over ice. Relative to midlatitude land, the PBLHvariability over tropical oceans is larger during the morning and at night but much smaller in the afternoon. This study provides a unique observational database for critical model evaluation on the PBLH diurnal cycle and its temporal/spatial variability.