Sea breeze

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

High‐frequency forcing and subtidal response of the Hudson River plume

Abstract: [1] The Lagrangian Transport and Transformation Experiments (LaTTE) document the physical, biological, and chemical evolution of the Hudson River plume during the spring seasons of 2004, 2005, and 2006. While plume variability due to river discharge, subinertial frequency variability in winds, and ambient shelf circulation are important, the observations show that the plume reacts directly to higher-frequency forcing as well. Mooring records during 2005 and 2006 show that fortnightly variability in tidal mixing is manifested as fortnightly changes in plume stratification. Diurnal variability related to forcing by the sea-land breeze system (SLBS) is apparent in the Hudson River plume during the 2005 experiment. The SLBS, while episodic, accounts for ∼15% of the kinetic energy in surface currents in the New York Bight apex during the summer months with individual SLBS events providing up to 50% of the total kinetic energy. Simulations of the plume, using the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS), demonstrate there is a subtidal response to high-frequency forcing. Spring-neap variability in tidal mixing modifies the estuary outflow Rossby and Froude numbers, resulting in increased transport (80% of river discharge) in the New Jersey coastal current during spring tides with lower transport (60% of river discharge) during neap tides. SLBS variability results in greater storage of river discharge water in the recirculating bulge region and increases the net transport of freshwater along the Long Island coast while significantly reducing freshwater supplied to the New Jersey coastal current to as little as 30% of the total river discharge.

Snowbands over the English Channel and Irish Sea during cold‐air outbreaks

Abstract: Persistent northerly-to-easterly cold-air outbreaks affected the UK during the winters of 2009�€“10 and 2010�€“11, with the resulting convection frequently organizing into snowbands over the English Channel and Irish Sea. Sounding data and composite radar reflectivity images from the Met Office Nimrod precipitation radar network reveal that these bands formed along the major axis of each body of water (or sea) when the boundary-layer flow was roughly parallel to each of those axes (along-channel). For both seas, a band was present the majority of times that the 850 hPa flow was along-channel. Of these times of along-channel flow, the 850 hPa wind speed and surface-to-850 hPa temperature difference were significantly greater when bands were present than when they were not. For the English Channel only, the land�€“sea temperature difference was also significantly greater when bands were present than when they were not. In a real-data Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) control simulation of a typical band over the English Channel, a trough develops over the water and offshore air streams from either side converge along it. In the absence of surface fluxes, the trough, convergence and organized precipitation fail to develop altogether. Orography and roughness-length variations are less important in band development, affecting only the location and morphology.