Sea breeze

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

An Observational and Numerical Study of the Nocturnal Sea Breeze. Part I: Structure and Circulation

Abstract: Characteristics of inland-penetrating nocturnal sea breezes at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina are discussed. Detailed observations from an area tower network during the Stable Boundary Layer Experiment (STABLE) indicate passage of marine air through SRS on three different nights. Large-scale winds are directed onshore for the first two nights, resulting in similar boundary layer structure and stability on these nights, while synoptic winds on the third night are offshore, leading to stronger convergence and wedging of the marine air under the inland air mass. The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) is used to simulate conditions for the final two nights. General features of the sea breeze are captured by the model, including wind shifts, moisture increases, turbulence structure differences between the two nights, and the formation of Kelvin–Helmholtz billows along the interface of marine and return airflow.

Simulation of the New England Sea Breeze: The Effect of Grid Spacing

Abstract: The fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–National Center for Atmospheric Research (Penn State– NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5) was run for seven cases from 2001 in which a sea breeze develops along the eastern New England coast. The results from model runs with 36-, 12-, and 4-km grid spacing are compared with observations as well as output from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Eta Model on a 40-km grid. As expected, analysis of the individual cases shows that the higher-resolution grids are able to resolve realistic details in the flow, details that the 36-km grids and the 40-km NCEP Eta Model miss entirely. Contrary to expectations, the error statistics show that the ability to forecast specific variables at specific locations does not improve very much when using higher resolution. Even more surprisingly, the 4-km grids produced the biggest errors in forecasting surface dewpoint.

On the Tropospheric Ozone Variations in a Coastal Area of Southwestern Europe under a Mesoscale Circulation

Abstract: It is well established that surface ozone levels are greatly affected by orography, solar radiation intensity, meteorological conditions, and the levels of their precursors. In this work, the authors study the sea–land breeze circulation in its relation with the behavior of ozone in a coastal area, located in southwestern Europe, with high levels of solar radiation and an important industrial complex emitting air pollutants. Hourly mean data over a 7-yr period (1999–2005) have been used in the study. Two patterns of sea–land breeze have been identified after analyzing 2298 days of measurements: a ‘‘pure’’ breeze (179 cases) and another one, called a ‘‘nonpure’’ breeze (284 cases), which is the resulting flow of the former and northwesterlies synoptic forcing. Among other results, the highest levels of surface ozone were observed under pure sea–land breeze, with hourly values up to 100 m gm 23 in the mean daily evolution. In contrast, for a nonpure breeze, the 24-h average daily value was lower than the corresponding one under a pure breeze by a factor of 1.16 and could reach 1.60 in representative real cases. These findings give evidence that the formation and accumulation of ozone are favored by the conditions under a pure sea–land breeze: that is, perpendicular wind directions toward the coastline, effective recirculation of air masses, and formation of ozone residual layers above the sea. Because these atmospheric conditions occur in other coastal regions in the world, the conclusions of this study could be extended to them.

Improving mesoscale modeling using satellite-derived land surface parameters in the Pearl River Delta region, China

Abstract: Land surface parameters play an important role in mesoscale modeling by regulating the regional heat flux and hydrological cycle. Recently, significant urbanization and afforestation occurred in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, China, which exert an important effect on local meteorology and thermal circulation. But previous studies failed to capture the complex changes of the surface characteristics in the PRD and thus were difficult to accurately describe the land-atmosphere coupling. In this study, high-resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer observations are used to specify the land cover type, green vegetation fraction, and leaf area index in the Weather Research and Forecasting model. Comparisons with ground-based observations during eight episodes, as well as satellite measurements, all indicate an improved model performance when the satellite-derived land surface parameters are assimilated. Moreover, the remote sensing data accurately reflect the surface inhomogeneity and successfully represent the intensity and spatiotemporal characteristics of the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The UHI effect in turn modifies the local thermal circulation by enhancing the urban-rural horizontal advection and initiating the urban heat island circulation, as well as interacting with the sea/land breeze over the PRD. This work not only improves the understanding of local meteorological simulation and forecasting but also sets the stage for further research on the feedback between air quality and meteorological responses due to land cover changes.