Sea breeze

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

Modeling of the Coastal Boundary Layer and Pollutant Transport in New England

Abstract: Concentrations of ozone exceeding regulatory standards are regularly observed along the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine in summer. These events are primarily caused by the transport of pollutants from urban areas in Massachusetts and farther south and west. Pollutant transport is most efficient over the ocean. The coastline makes transport processes complex because it makes the structure of the atmospheric boundary layer complex. During pollution episodes, the air over land in daytime is warmer than the sea surface, so air transported from land over water becomes statically stable and the formerly well-mixed boundary layer separates into possibly several layers, each transported in a different direction. This study examines several of the atmospheric boundary layer processes involved in pollutant transport. A three-dimensional model [the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS)] run on grids of 2.5 and 7.5 km is used to examine the winds, thermodynamic structure, and struct...

A Simple Model of the Australian West Coast Trough

Abstract: The Australian west coast trough forms near the west coast in the easterly flow over Australia in the warmer months of the year. Its development and movement is the major synoptic influence on the weather in those months, particularly in the production of extreme maximum temperatures and subsequent “cool changes.” This paper begins with a brief discussion of the climatology of the trough, followed by a case study. The main focus is on the development and interpretation of a simple dynamical model of the trough. The model is an adaptation of the linear diabatic equatorial β-plane models of Matsuno and of Gill for the particular situation of the trough. The study leads to a new hypothesis on the role of the sea breeze in the dynamics of the trough.

Numerical Simulation of the Quasi-Stationary Snowband Observed over the Southern Coastal Area of the Sea of Japan on 16 January 2001

Abstract: On 16 January 2001 during the field experiment named WMO-01, a meso-β-scale snowband extending eastward from Toyama Bay was observed in the coastal area of eastern Hokuriku district, middle part of Japan. This snowband stagnated for about half a day and brought a snowfall of about 50 cm in this region.Numerical simulations of this snowband are performed using a nonhydrostatic cloud resolving model (NHM), with a horizontal grid size of 1 km. The NHM well reproduces many characteristics of the observed snowband. The snowband forms over the convergence zone between a cold southerly land breeze and a northwesterly winter monsoon, to which heat and moisture is supplied from relatively warm sea surface. Convective snow cells with the horizontal scale of a few km successively form at the northern part of the snowband and propagate east-southeastward. Meso-γ-scale convective snow systems are organized, consisting of developed snow cells in the snowband. A cold pool forms under the snowband. The diabatic cooling due to the sublimation of snow is responsible for the formation of the cold pool. After the land breeze became weak, the cold pool contributes to the maintenance of the horizontal convergence with the northwesterly winter monsoon at the northern edge of the snowband by compensating for the weakened land breeze. Therefore, the formation of the cold pool is significant for the maintenance of thesnowband.

The impact of waves and sea spray on modelling storm track and development

Abstract: In high wind speed conditions, sea spray generated by intensely breaking waves greatly influences the wind stress and heat fluxes. Measurements indicate that the drag coefficient decreases at high wind speeds. The sea spray generation function (SSGF), an important term of wind stress parameterisation at high wind speeds, is usually treated as a function of wind speed/friction velocity. In this study, we introduce a wave-state-dependent SSGF and wave-age-dependent Charnock number into a high wind speed–wind stress parameterisation. The newly proposed wind stress parameterisation and sea spray heat flux parameterisation were applied to an atmosphere–wave coupled model to study the mid-latitude storm development of six storm cases. Compared with measurements from the FINO1 platform in the North Sea, the new wind stress parameterisation can reduce wind speed simulation errors in the high wind speed range. Considering only sea spray impact on wind stress (and not on heat fluxes) will intensify the storms (in terms of minimum sea level pressure and maximum wind speed), but has little effect on the storm tracks. Considering the impact of sea spray on heat fluxes only (not on wind stress) can improve the model performance regarding air temperature, but it has little effect on the storm intensity and storm track performance. If the impact of sea spray on both the wind stress and heat fluxes is taken into account, the model performs best in all experiments for minimum sea level pressure, maximum wind speed and air temperature. Keywords: sea spray, wind stress, heat fluxes, storms (Published: 23 September 2015) Citation: Tellus A 2015, 67, 27967, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v67.27967