The instructor's manual to a work which introduces the fundamental principles of meteorology, explaining storm dynamics and the dynamics of climate and its global implications.

An introduction to dynamic meteorology

Numerous modifications to the Kain‐Fritsch convective parameterization have been implemented over the last decade. These modifications are described, and the motivating factors for the changes are discussed. Most changes were inspired by feedback from users of the scheme (primarily numerical modelers) and interpreters of the model output (mainly operational forecasters). The specific formulation of the modifications evolved from an effort to produce desired effects in numerical weather prediction while also rendering the scheme more faithful to observations and cloud-resolving modeling studies.

/pdf/the-kain-fritsch-convective-parameterization-an-update-45fzkxcusr.pdf

The Kain–Fritsch Convective Parameterization: An Update

A Description of the Fifth-Generation Penn State/ NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5), NCAR/TN-398+STR

Abstract A two-dimensional version of the Pennsylvania State University mesoscale model has been applied to Winter Monsoon Experiment data in order to simulate the diurnally occurring convection observed over the South China Sea. The domain includes a representation of part of Borneo as well as the sea so that the model can simulate the initiation of convection. Also included in the model are parameterizations of mesoscale ice phase and moisture processes and longwave and shortwave radiation with a diurnal cycle. This allows use of the model to test the relative importance of various heating mechanisms to the stratiform cloud deck, which typically occupies several hundred kilometers of the domain. Frank and Cohen's cumulus parameterization scheme is employed to represent vital unresolved vertical transports in the convective area. The major conclusions are: Ice phase processes are important in determining the level of maximum large-scale heating and vertical motion because there is a strong anvil componen...

Numerical study of convection observed during the Winter Monsoon Experiment using a mesoscale two-dimensional model [presentation]

/pdf/a-description-of-the-fifth-generation-penn-state-ncar-4380gcr9if.pdf

A description of the fifth-generation Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5)

Large-scale modification of the environment by cumulus clouds is discussed in terms of entrainment, detrainment, evaporation, and subsidence. Drying, warming, and condensation by vertical displacement of air are considered as well as budget equations for mass, static energy, water vapor, and liquid water.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19740004191/downloads/19740004191.pdf

Interaction of a Cumulus Cloud Ensemble with the Large-Scale Environment, Part I

It has long been known that trade wind cumulus and deep cumulonimbus represent primary components of the broad spectrum of cumulus clouds in the Tropics, which has led to the concept of a bimodal distribution of tropical clouds. However, recent analyses of shipboard radar data from Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean‐Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) provide evidence of abundant populations of a third cloud type, cumulus congestus. Congestus clouds constitute over half the precipitating convective clouds in COARE and contribute over one-quarter of the total convective rainfall. Global Atmospheric Research Program Atlantic Tropical Experiment studies reveal a similar midlevel peak in the distribution of radar-echo tops. These findings lead to the conclusion that shallow cumulus, congestus,and cumulonimbus are all prominent tropical cumulus cloud types. They are associated with trimodal distributions of divergence, cloud detrainment, and fractional cloudiness in the Tropics. The peaks in the distributions of radar-echo tops for these three cloud types are in close proximity to prominent stable layers that exist over the Pacific warm pool and the tropical eastern Atlantic: near 2 km (the trade stable layer), ;5 km (near 08C), and ;15‐16 km (the tropopause). These stable layers are inferred to inhibit cloud growth and promote cloud detrainment. The 08C stable layer can produce detrainment from cumulonimbi (attendant shelf clouds) and help retard the growth of precipitation-laden and strongly entraining congestus clouds. Moreover, restriction of growth of congestus clouds to just above the 08C level limits further enhancement of cloud buoyancy through glaciation. The three cloud types are found to vary significantly during COARE on the timescale of the 30‐60-day intraseasonal oscillation. The specific roles of clouds of the congestus variety in the general circulation are not yet clear, but some (the shallower ones) contribute to moistening and preconditioning the atmosphere for deep convection; others (the deeper ones) contribute an important fraction of the total tropical rainfall, and both likely produce many midlevel clouds, thereby modulating the radiative heating of the tropical atmosphere.

/pdf/trimodal-characteristics-of-tropical-convection-422p62evzn.pdf

Trimodal Characteristics of Tropical Convection

Hurricane eyewalls are often observed to be nearly circular structures, but they are occasionally observed to take on distinctly polygonal shapes. The shapes range from triangles to hexagons and, while they are often incomplete, straight line segments can be identified. Other observations implicate the existence of intense mesovortices within or near the eye region. Is there a relation between polygonal eyewalls and hurricane mesovortices? Are these phenomena just curiosities of the hurricane’s inner-core circulation, or are they snapshots of an intrinsic mixing process within or near the eye that serves to determine the circulation and thermal structure of the eye? As a first step toward understanding the asymmetric vorticity dynamics of the hurricane’s eye and eyewall region, these issues are examined within the framework of an unforced barotropic nondivergent model. Polygonal eyewalls are shown to form as a result of barotropic instability near the radius of maximum winds. After reviewing linear theory, simulations with a high-resolution pseudospectral numerical model are presented to follow the instabilities into their nonlinear regime. When the instabilities grow to finite amplitude, the vorticity of the eyewall region pools into discrete areas, creating the appearance of polygonal eyewalls. The circulations associated with these pools of vorticity suggest a connection to hurricane mesovortices. At later times the vorticity is ultimately rearranged into a nearly monopolar circular vortex. While the evolution of the finescale vorticity field is sensitive to the initial condition, the macroscopic end-states are found to be similar. In fact, the gross characteristics of the numerically simulated end-states are predicted analytically using a generalization of the minimum enstrophy hypothesis. In an effort to remove some of the weaknesses of the minimum enstrophy approach, a maximum entropy argument developed previously for rectilinear shear flows is extended to the vortex problem, and end-state solutions in the limiting case of tertiary mixing are obtained. Implications of these ideas for real hurricanes are discussed.

/pdf/polygonal-eyewalls-asymmetric-eye-contraction-and-potential-2ecdeplsj4.pdf

Polygonal Eyewalls, Asymmetric Eye Contraction, and Potential Vorticity Mixing in Hurricanes

We consider the frictionless, axisymmetric, balanced flow occurring in a thermally forced vortex on an f-plane. Following Eliassen (1952) we derive the diagnostic equation for the forced secondary circulation. This equation contains the spatially varying coefficients A (static stability), B (baroclinity), C (inertial stability), and the thermal forcing Q. Assuming that A is a constant, B = 0, and that C and Q are piecewise constant functions of radius, we obtain analytical solutions for the forced secondary circulation. The solutions illustrate the following points. 1) For a given Q an increase in inertial stability leads to a decrease in the forced secondary circulation and a change in the radial distribution of local temperature change, with enhanced ∂θ/∂t; in the region of high inertial stability. 2) Lower tropospheric tangential wind accelerations are larger inside the radius of maximum wind, which leads to a collapse of the radius of maximum wind. 3) The fraction of Q which ends up as ∂θ/∂t;...

Inertial Stability and Tropical Cyclone Development

The spiral bands that occur in tropical cyclones can be conveniently divided into two classes—outer bands and inner bands. Evidence is presented here that the outer bands form as the result of nonlinear effects during the breakdown of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) through barotropic instability. In this process a zonal strip of high potential vorticity (the ITCZ shear zone or monsoon trough) begins to distort in a varicose fashion, with the potential vorticity (PV) becoming pooled in local regions that are connected by filaments of high PV. As the pooled regions become more axisymmetric, the filaments become thinner and begin to wrap around the PV centers. It is argued that inner bands form in a different manner. As a tropical cyclone intensifies due to latent heat release, the PV field becomes nearly circular with the highest values of PV in the cyclone center. The radial gradient of PV provides a state on which PV waves (the generalization of Rossby waves) can propagate. The nonline...

Wayne H. Schubert

Papers

Interaction of a Cumulus Cloud Ensemble with the Large-Scale Environment, Part I

Trimodal Characteristics of Tropical Convection

Polygonal Eyewalls, Asymmetric Eye Contraction, and Potential Vorticity Mixing in Hurricanes

Inertial Stability and Tropical Cyclone Development

Hurricane Spiral Bands