Non-hydrostatic effects on mountain wave breaking in directional shear flows

Mountain waves excited by narrow 3D orography are investigated using idealized numerical simulations of atmospheric flows with directional wind shear. The stability of these waves is compared with the stability of hydrostatic mountain waves. The focus is on understanding how wave breaking is modified via gravity wave-critical level interaction, when non-hydrostatic (dispersive) effects arise. The influence of nonhydrostatic effects on wave breaking appears to be a function of the intensity of the background shear, increasing the stability of the flow (inhibiting wave breaking) for weak wind shear, but decreasing it instead (enhancing wave breaking) for stronger wind shear

Social categories guide young children’s preferences for novel objects

To whom do children look when deciding on their own preferences? To address this question, 3-year-old children were asked to choose between objects or activities that were endorsed by unfamiliar people who differed in gender, race (White, Black), or age (child, adult). In Experiment 1, children demonstrated robust preferences for objects and activities endorsed by children of their own gender, but less consistent preferences for objects and activities endorsed by children of their own race. In Experiment 2, children selected objects and activities favored by people of their own gender and age. In neither study did most children acknowledge the influence of these social categories. These findings suggest that gender and age categories are encoded spontaneously and influence children's preferences and choices. For young children, gender and age may be more powerful guides to preferences than race.Psycholog

Large-scale length and time scales for use with stochastic convective parameterization

Many numerical models for weather prediction and climate studies are run at resolutions that are too coarse to resolve convection explicitly, but too fine to justify the local equilibrium assumed by conventional convective parameterizations. The Plant-Craig (PC) stochastic convective parameterization scheme, developed in this paper, solves this problem by removing the assumption that a given grid-scale situation must always produce the same sub-grid-scale convective response. Instead, for each timestep and gridpoint, one of the many possible convective responses consistent with the large-scale situation is randomly selected. The scheme requires as input the large-scale state as opposed to the instantaneous grid-scale state, but must nonetheless be able to account for genuine variations in the largescale situation. Here we investigate the behaviour of the PC scheme in three-dimensional simulations of radiative-convective equilibrium, demonstrating in particular that the necessary space-time averaging required to produce a good representation of the input large-scale state is not in conflict with the requirement to capture large-scale variations. The resulting equilibrium profiles agree well with those obtained from established deterministic schemes, and with corresponding cloud-resolving model simulations. Unlike the conventional schemes the statistics for mass flux and rainfall variability from the PC scheme also agree well with relevant theory and vary appropriately with spatial scale. The scheme is further shown to adapt automatically to changes in grid length and in forcing strength

Impact of a stochastic kinetic energy backscatter scheme across time-scales and resolutions

Copyright © 2014 Royal Meteorological SocietyStochastic physics is one of the preferred methods to represent model uncertainty in ensemble prediction systems of medium-range weather prediction and seasonal forecasting. These schemes increase the ensemble spread and improve probabilistic skill scores. However, little is known about how the stochastic perturbations interact with different atmospheric processes. In order to provide deeper insight into the impacts of stochastic physics on the representation of the atmosphere the stochastic kinetic energy backscatter (SKEB2) scheme has been used in the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) across different time-scales. We use ‘classic’ verification techniques such as the Root Mean Error Square (RMSE) index in combination with novel ‘object-oriented’ verification metrics such as the Reading University Tracking system (RUTRACK) for extratropical cyclones. We find that the SKEB2 degrades the RMSE and Anomaly Correlation Coefficient (ACC) of individual short-range deterministic forecasts. On average the kinetic energy backscatter by the SKEB2 counteracts the excessive dissipation of extratropical cyclones, improving the model, but its forcing does not scale well across resolutions. Over the Tropics the SKEB2 improvements of the mean climatology and temporal variability are noteworthy, but driven by spurious Rossby waves. There are aspects of the SKEB2 that could be improved to create a more realistic stochastic representation of model uncertainty.Joint DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programm

Social Information Guides Infants' Selection of Foods

Two experiments investigated the influence of socially conveyed emotions and speech on infants' choices among food. After watching films in which two unfamiliar actresses each spoke while eating a different kind of food, 12-month-old infants were allowed to choose between the two foods. In Experiment 1, infants selected a food endorsed by a speaker of their native language who displayed positive affect over a food endorsed by a foreign-language speaker who displayed negative affect. In Experiment 2, both actresses displayed positive affect, but they spoke in different languages, and infants again selected the food associated with the speaker of their native language. The findings contrast with previous research in which infants and toddlers have shown little selectivity when presented with foods that differ in their intrinsic properties such as color, texture, and familiarity. Although infants may lack capacities for evaluating foods on their own, they do look to other people for guidance in food selection.Psycholog

The generation and propagation of planetary Rossby waves

Imperial Users onl

Children's racial categorization in context

The ability to discriminate visually based on race emerges early in infancy: 3-month-olds can perceptually differentiate faces by race and 6-month-olds can perceptually categorize faces by race. Between ages 6 and 8 years, children can sort others into racial groups. But to what extent are these abilities influenced by context? In this article, we review studies on children's racial categorization and discuss how our conclusions are affected by how we ask the questions (i.e., our methods and stimuli), where we ask them (i.e., the diversity of the child's surrounding environment), and whom we ask (i.e., the diversity of the children we study). Taken together, we suggest that despite a developmental readiness to categorize others by race, the use of race as a psychologically salient basis for categorization is far from inevitable and is shaped largely by the experimental setting and the greater cultural context

I’ll have what she’s having: the impact of model characteristics on children’s food choices

This research investigates children’s use of social categories in their food selection. Across three studies, we presented preschoolers with sets of photographs that contrasted food‐eating models with different characteristics, including model gender, race (Black, White), age (child or adult), and/or expression (acceptance or rejection of the food). Children were asked to pick between the photographs to choose which food they would like for snack. Results demonstrated that preschoolers prefer foods being eaten by models with positive over negative expressions, foods being eaten by child over adult models, and foods being eaten by child models of the same gender as themselves over models of the other gender. This work connects with previous research on children’s understanding of social categories and also has important practical implications for how characteristics of a food‐eating model can affect children’s willingness to try new foods.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90408/1/j.1467-7687.2011.01106.x.pd

A linear model of gravity wave drag for hydrostatic sheared flow over elliptical mountains

An analytical model of orographic gravity wave drag due to sheared flow past elliptical mountains is developed. The model extends the domain of applicability of the well-known Phillips model to wind profiles that vary relatively slowly in the vertical, so that they may be treated using a WKB approximation. The model illustrates how linear processes associated with wind profile shear and curvature affect the drag force exerted by the airflow on mountains, and how it is crucial to extend the WKB approximation to second order in the small perturbation parameter for these effects to be taken into account. For the simplest wind profiles, the normalized drag depends only on the Richardson number, Ri, of the flow at the surface and on the aspect ratio, γ, of the mountain. For a linear wind profile, the drag decreases as Ri decreases, and this variation is faster when the wind is across the mountain than when it is along the mountain. For a wind that rotates with height maintaining its magnitude, the drag generally increases as Ri decreases, by an amount depending on γ and on the incidence angle. The results from WKB theory are compared with exact linear results and also with results from a non-hydrostatic nonlinear numerical model, showing in general encouraging agreement, down to values of Ri of order one