Latent heat

About: Latent heat is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13503 publications have been published within this topic receiving 302811 citations.

Seamless Poleward Atmospheric Energy Transports and Implications for the Hadley Circulation

Abstract: A detailed vertically integrated atmospheric heat and energy budget is presented along with estimated heat budgets at the surface and top-of-atmosphere for the subtropics. It is shown that the total energy transports are remarkably seamless in spite of greatly varying mechanisms. From the Tropics to about 31° latitude, the primary transport mechanisms are the Hadley and Walker overturning circulations. In the extratropics the energy transports are carried out by baroclinic eddies broadly organized into storm tracks and quasi-stationary waves that covary in a symbiotic way as the location and activity in storm tracks are determined by, and in turn help maintain through eddy transports, the quasi-stationary flow. In the upward branch of the Hadley cell, the predominant diabatic process is latent heating that results from convergence of moisture by the circulation itself. Hence large poleward transports of dry static energy are compensated by equatorward transports of latent energy, resulting in a m...

The Project for Intercomparison of Land-surface Parameterization Schemes (PILPS) phase 2(c) Red–Arkansas River basin experiment:: 3. Spatial and temporal analysis of water fluxes

Abstract: The energy components of sixteen Soil-Vegetation Atmospheric Transfer (SVAT) schemes were analyzed and intercompared using 10 years of surface meteorological and radiative forcing data from the Red-Arkansas River basin in the Southern Great Plains of the United States. Comparisons of simulated surface energy fluxes among models showed that the net radiation and surface temperature generally had the best agreement among the schemes. On an average (annual and monthly) basis, the estimated latent heat fluxes agreed (to within approximate estimation errors) with the latent heat fluxes derived from a radiosonde-based atmospheric budget method for slightly more than half of the schemes. The sensible heat fluxes had larger differences among the schemes than did the latent heat fluxes, and the model-simulated ground heat fluxes had large variations among the schemes. The spatial patterns of the model-computed net radiation and surface temperature were generally similar among the schemes, and appear reasonable and consistent with observations of related variables, such as surface air temperature. The spatial mean patterns of latent and sensible heat fluxes were less similar than for net radiation, and the spatial patterns of the ground heat flux vary greatly among the 16 schemes. Generally, there is less similarity among the models in the temporal (interannual) variability of surface fluxes and temperature than there is in the mean fields, even for schemes with similar mean fields.

Objective Criteria for Rejecting Data for Bowen Ratio Flux Calculations

Abstract: In addition to the inherent problem of accumulating errors of measurement of net radiation and subsurface heat flux, the Bowen ratio energy balance method often produces totally unacceptable sensible and latent heat fluxes: wrong signs (directions) and extremely inaccurate magnitudes of the fluxes, or both. These problems are due to resolution limits of the instruments. Objective criteria to eliminate undesirable data are derived in general forms. An example is graphically presented for the common case of the psychometric tower with a 0.05°C resolution limit of temperature measurement.

Covariability of Components of Poleward Atmospheric Energy Transports on Seasonal and Interannual Timescales

Abstract: Vertically integrated atmospheric energy and heat budgets are presented with a focus on the zonal mean transports and divergences of dry static energy, latent energy, their sum (the moist static energy), and the total (which includes kinetic energy), as well as their partitioning into the within-month transient and quasi-stationary components. The latter includes the long-term mean and interannual variability from 1979 to 2001 and, in the Tropics, corresponds to the large-scale overturning global monsoon and the embedded Hadley and Walker circulations. In the extratropics, it includes the quasi-stationary planetary waves, which are primarily a factor in the Northern Hemisphere winter. In addition to the mean annual cycle, results are presented for the interannual variability. In the extratropics, poleward transports of both latent and dry static energy reinforce one another. However, the results highlight strong cancellations between the transports of latent and dry static energy in the Tropics a...