Velocity derivatives in the atmospheric surface layer at Re-lambda=10(4)

We report first results of an experiment in which explicit information is obtained on the field of velocity derivatives (all the nine components of the tensor partial derivativeu(i)/partial derivativex(j)) along with all the three components of velocity fluctuations at Reynolds number as high as Re(lambda)similar to 10(4). This includes information on such basic processes as enstrophy and strain production, geometrical statistics, the role of concentrated vorticity and strain, and the reduction of nonlinearity. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.