Sea breeze

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

Summertime winds and direct cyclonic circulation: observations from Lake Geneva

Abstract: Records of wind, air temperature and air pressure from nine stations, situated along the shoreline of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, were analyzed for the summer period May to September. At all stations the consistent appearance of significant spectral peaks and changes in wind direction at the diurnal frequency indicates the importance of lake-land breezes. It is shown that the surrounding topography has a strong modifying effect (temporal and spatial) on the lake-land breeze. Superimposed on this cyclic wind pattern, short episodes of strong winds with long fetch over parts of Lake Geneva are regularly observed. Both of these winds exert a spatially variable wind stress over the lake surface on the same time scale. Typical examples of the expected lake's response are presented, among them the seasonally persistent gyre in the central part of the lake. Evidence is provided that this dominant circulation is part of a direct cyclonic circulation, generated by the curl of the diurnal wind field. It is concluded that the mean circulation is caused by these winds and affected by the topography of the surrounding land.

Land breezes and nocturnal thunderstorms

Abstract: After extension of the definition of land breeze and introductory discussion of the problem of nocturnal thunderstorms, tables are presented for Lydda Airport, Israel, showing the diurnal variation of thunderstorms and the associated surface wind-directions. There is a notable excess of nocturnal thunderstorms with wind directions in the quadrant from which the land breeze blows. The fundamental fact is pointed out that, because of the curvature of the coast of the eastern Mediterranean (concave toward the sea), the fields of the land breezes and the diurnal winds in the friction layer constitute a convergent wind field, particularly pronounced in the winter. The type of low over the eastern Mediterranean in which land-breeze convergences make an important contribution toward the formation of nocturnal thunderstorms is discussed briefly. A diagram shows the divergent nature of the sea breezes in summer, again, first and foremost, because of the concave curvature of the coast. A number of stations...

Cloud‐to‐ground lightning enhancement over Southern Louisiana

Abstract: [1] Fourteen years (1989–2002) of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning data show a significant enhancement of lightning associated with Lake Charles and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A peak density value of 7 flashes km−2 yr−1 exists on the western side of the Lake Charles urban area. A comparison of the Louisiana CG flash density distribution with the locations of PM10 (particulate matter less than 10 μm in diameter) sources strongly suggests that pollution plays a key role in lightning enhancement. Urban and sea breeze effects can be neglected. The values of median peak negative current show a sharp difference between land and the Gulf of Mexico; inland values are near 24 kA, while over the Gulf waters immediately offshore are over 30 kA. This observation, along with a relative minimum of negative peak current from the mouth of the Mississippi River southeastward seems to support the hypothesis that the underlying surface characteristics influence the calculated negative current distribution.