427 research outputs found

    Joint Air Sea Interaction (JASIN) experiment, Northwest coast of Scotland

    Get PDF
    The joint air sea interaction (JASIN) experiment took place off the Northwest coast of Scotland. Sea surface and boundary layer parameters were measured. The JASIN data was used as ground truth for various sensors on the SEASAT satellite

    Polar mesoscale cyclones in the northeast Atlantic: Comparing climatologies from ERA-40 and satellite imagery

    Get PDF
    Polar mesoscale cyclones over the subarctic are thought to be an important component of the coupled atmosphereā€“ocean climate system. However, the relatively small scale of these features presents some concern as to their representation in the meteorological reanalysis datasets that are commonly used to drive ocean models. Here polar mesocyclones are detected in the 40-Year European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis dataset (ERA-40) in mean sea level pressure and 500-hPa geopotential height, using an automated cyclone detection algorithm. The results are compared to polar mesocyclones detected in satellite imagery over the northeast Atlantic, for the period October 1993ā€“September 1995. Similar trends in monthly cyclone numbers and a similar spatial distribution are found. However, there is a bias in the size of cyclones detected in the reanalysis. Up to 80% of cyclones larger than 500 km are detected in MSL pressure, but this hit rate decreases, approximately linearly, to āˆ¼40% for 250-km-scale cyclones and to āˆ¼20% for 100-km-scale cyclones. Consequently a substantial component of the associated airā€“sea fluxes may be missing from the reanalysis, presenting a serious shortcoming when using such reanalysis data for ocean modeling simulations. Eight maxima in cyclone density are apparent in the mean sea level pressure, clustered around synoptic observing stations in the northeast Atlantic. They are likely spurious, and a result of unidentified shortcomings in the ERA-40 data assimilation procedure

    Wake response to an ocean-feedback mechanism: Madeira Island case study

    Full text link
    This discussion focused on the numerical study of a wake episode. The Weather Research and Forecasting model was used in a downscale mode. The current literature focuses the discussion on the adiabatic dynamics of atmospheric wakes. Changes in mountain height and consequently on its relation to the atmospheric inversion layer should explain the shift in wake regimes: from a 'strong-wake' to a 'weak-wake' scenario. Nevertheless, changes in SST variability can also induce similar regime shifts. Increase in evaporation, contributes to increase convection and thus to an uplift of the stratified atmospheric layer, above the critical height, with subsequent internal gravity wave activity.Comment: Under review proces

    Seasonal evolution of Aleutian low pressure systems: Implications for the North Pacific subpolar circulation

    Get PDF
    The seasonal change in the development of Aleutian low pressure systems from early fall to early winter is analyzed using a combination of meteorological reanalysis fields, satellite sea surface temperature (SST) data, and satellite wind data. The time period of the study is Septemberā€“December 2002, although results are shown to be representative of the long-term climatology. Characteristics of the storms were documented as they progressed across the North Pacific, including their path, central pressure, deepening rate, and speed of translation. Clear patterns emerged. Storms tended to deepen in two distinct geographical locationsā€”the Gulf of Alaska in early fall and the western North Pacific in late fall. In the Gulf of Alaska, a quasi-permanent ā€œnotchā€ in the SST distribution is argued to be of significance. The signature of the notch is imprinted in the atmosphere, resulting in a region of enhanced cyclonic potential vorticity in the lower troposphere that is conducive for storm development. Later in the season, as winter approaches and the Sea of Okhotsk becomes partially ice covered and cold, the air emanating from the Asian continent leads to enhanced baroclinicity in the region south of Kamchatka. This corresponds to enhanced storm cyclogenesis in that region. Consequently, there is a seasonal westward migration of the dominant lobe of the Aleutian low. The impact of the wind stress curl pattern resulting from these two regions of storm development on the oceanic circulation is investigated using historical hydrography. It is argued that the seasonal bimodal input of cyclonic vorticity from the wind may be partly responsible for the two distinct North Pacific subarctic gyres

    Pollutant dispersion in a developing valley cold-air pool

    Get PDF
    Pollutants are trapped and accumulate within cold-air pools, thereby affecting air quality. A numerical model is used to quantify the role of cold-air-pooling processes in the dispersion of air pollution in a developing cold-air pool within an alpine valley under decoupled stable conditions. Results indicate that the negatively buoyant downslope flows transport and mix pollutants into the valley to depths that depend on the temperature deficit of the flow and the ambient temperature structure inside the valley. Along the slopes, pollutants are generally entrained above the cold-air pool and detrained within the cold-air pool, largely above the ground-based inversion layer. The ability of the cold-air pool to dilute pollutants is quantified. The analysis shows that the downslope flows fill the valley with air from above, which is then largely trapped within the cold-air pool, and that dilution depends on where the pollutants are emitted with respect to the positions of the top of the ground-based inversion layer and cold-air pool, and on the slope wind speeds. Over the lower part of the slopes, the cold-air-pool-averaged concentrations are proportional to the slope wind speeds where the pollutants are emitted, and diminish as the cold-air pool deepens. Pollutants emitted within the ground-based inversion layer are largely trapped there. Pollutants emitted farther up the slopes detrain within the cold-air pool above the ground-based inversion layer, although some fraction, increasing with distance from the top of the slopes, penetrates into the ground-based inversion layer.Peer reviewe

    Scalar flux profile relationships over the open ocean

    Get PDF
    Author Posting. Ā© American Geophysical Union, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (2004): C08S09, doi:10.1029/2003JC001960.The most commonly used flux-profile relationships are based on Monin-Obukhov (MO) similarity theory. These flux-profile relationships are required in indirect methods such as the bulk aerodynamic, profile, and inertial dissipation methods to estimate the fluxes over the ocean. These relationships are almost exclusively derived from previous field experiments conducted over land. However, the use of overland measurements to infer surface fluxes over the ocean remains questionable, particularly close to the ocean surface where wave-induced forcing can affect the flow. This study investigates the flux profile relationships over the open ocean using measurements made during the 2000 Fluxes, Air-Sea Interaction, and Remote Sensing (FAIRS) and 2001 GasEx experiments. These experiments provide direct measurement of the atmospheric fluxes along with profiles of water vapor and temperature. The specific humidity data are used to determine parameterizations of the dimensionless gradients using functional forms of two commonly used relationships. The best fit to the Businger-Dyer relationship [ Businger, 1988 ] is found using an empirical constant of a q = 13.4 Ā± 1.7. The best fit to a formulation that has the correct form in the limit of local free convection [e.g., Wyngaard, 1973 ] is found using a q = 29.8 Ā± 4.6. These values are in good agreement with the consensus values from previous overland experiments and the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) 3.0 bulk algorithm [ Fairall et al., 2003 ]; e.g., the COARE algorithm uses empirical constants of 15 and 34.2 for the Businger-Dyer and convective forms, respectively. Although the flux measurements were made at a single elevation and local similarity scaling is applied, the good agreement implies that MO similarity is valid within the marine atmospheric surface layer above the wave boundary layer.The FAIRS work was supported by the Office of Naval Research grant N00014-00-1-0403 while the GasEx work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant OCE-9986724

    Relationship between ecosystem productivity and photosynthetically-active radiation for northern peatlands

    Get PDF
    We analyzed the relationship between net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide (NEE) and irradiance (as photosynthetic photon flux density or PPFD), using published and unpublished data that have been collected during midgrowing season for carbon balance studies at seven peatlands in North America and Europe. NEE measurements included both eddy-correlation tower and clear, static chamber methods, which gave very similar results. Data were analyzed by site, as aggregated data sets by peatland type (bog, poor fen, rich fen, and all fens) and as a single aggregated data set for all peatlands. In all cases, a fit with a rectangular hyperbola (NEE = Ī± PPFD Pmax/(Ī± PPFD + Pmax) + R) better described the NEE-PPFD relationship than did a linear fit (NEE = Ī² PPFD + R). Poor and rich fens generally had similar NEE-PPFD relationships, while bogs had lower respiration rates (R = āˆ’2.0Ī¼mol māˆ’2sāˆ’1 for bogs and āˆ’2.7 Ī¼mol māˆ’2sāˆ’1 for fens) and lower NEE at moderate and high light levels (Pmax = 5.2 Ī¼mol māˆ’2sāˆ’1 for bogs and 10.8 Ī¼mol māˆ’2sāˆ’1 for fens). As a single class, northern peatlands had much smaller ecosystem respiration (R = āˆ’2.4 Ī¼mol māˆ’2sāˆ’1) and NEE rates (Ī± = 0.020 and Pmax = 9.2Ī¼mol māˆ’2sāˆ’1) than the upland ecosystems (closed canopy forest, grassland, and cropland) summarized by Ruimy et al. [1995]. Despite this low productivity, northern peatland soil carbon pools are generally 5ā€“50 times larger than upland ecosystems because of slow rates of decomposition caused by litter quality and anaerobic, cold soils
    • ā€¦
    corecore