Sea breeze

About: Sea breeze is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2544 publications have been published within this topic receiving 55651 citations.

Projected climate change scenario over California by a regional ocean–atmosphere coupled model system

Abstract: This study examines a future climate change scenario over California in a 10-km coupled regional downscaling system of the Regional Spectral Model for the atmosphere and the Regional Ocean Modeling System for the ocean forced by the global Community Climate System Model version 3.0 (CCSM3). In summer, the coupled and uncoupled downscaled experiments capture the warming trend of surface air temperature, consistent with the driving CCSM3 forcing. However, the surface warming change along the California coast is weaker in the coupled downscaled experiment than it is in the uncoupled downscaling. Atmospheric cooling due to upwelling along the coast commonly appears in both the present and future climates, but the effect of upwelling is not fully compensated for by the projected large-scale warming in the coupled downscaling experiment. The projected change of extreme warm events is quite different between the coupled and uncoupled downscaling experiments, with the former projecting a more moderate change. The projected future change in precipitation is not significantly different between coupled and uncoupled downscaling. Both the coupled and uncoupled downscaling integrations predict increased onshore sea breeze change in summer daytime and reduced offshore land breeze change in summer nighttime along the coast from the Bay area to Point Conception. Compared to the simulation of present climate, the coupled and uncoupled downscaling experiments predict 17.5 % and 27.5 % fewer Catalina eddy hours in future climate respectively.

Spatial and diurnal variability in reactive nitrogen oxide chemistry as reflected in the isotopic composition of atmospheric nitrate: Results from the CalNex 2010 field study

Abstract: [1] Here we present measurements of the size-resolved concentration and isotopic composition of atmospheric nitrate (NO3−) collected during a cruise in coastal California. Significant differences in air mass origin and atmospheric chemistry were observed in the two main regions of this cruise (South and Central Coast) with corresponding differences in NO3− concentration and isotope ratios. Measurements of the 17O-excess (Δ17O) of NO3− suggest that nocturnal chemistry played an important role in terms of total NO3− production (~ 50%) in the coastal Los Angeles region (South Coast), where NO3− concentrations were elevated due to the influence of sea breeze / land breeze recirculation and Δ17O(NO3−) averaged (25.3 ± 1.6)‰. Conversely, Δ17O(NO3−) averaged (22.3 ± 1.8)‰ in the Central Coast region, suggesting that the daytime OH + NO2 reaction was responsible for 60–85% of NO3− production in the marine air sampled in this area. A strong diurnal signal was observed for both the Δ17O and δ15N of NO3−. In the case of Δ17O, this trend is interpreted quantitatively in terms of the relative proportions of daytime and nighttime production and the atmospheric lifetime of NO3−. For δ15N, which had an average value of (0.0 ± 3.2)‰, the observed diurnality suggests a combined effect of isotopic exchange between gas-phase precursors and variability in reactive nitrogen sources. These findings represent a significant advance in our understanding of the isotope dynamics of nitrate and its precursor molecules, with potentially important implications for air quality modeling.