Wind shear

About: Wind shear is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8023 publications have been published within this topic receiving 185373 citations.

Gravity Wave Breaking over the Central Alps: Role of Complex Terrain

Abstract: The characteristics of gravity waves excited by the complex terrain of the central Alps during the intensive observational period (IOP) 8 of the Mesoscale Alpine Programme (MAP) is studied through the analysis of aircraft in situ measurements, GPS dropsondes, radiosondes, airborne lidar data, and numerical simulations. Mountain wave breaking occurred over the central Alps on 21 October 1999, associated with wind shear, wind turning, and a critical level with Richardson number less than unity just above the flight level (∼5.7 km) of the research aircraft NCAR Electra. The Electra flew two repeated transverses across the Otztaler Alpen, during which localized turbulence was sampled. The observed maximum vertical motion was 9 m s−1, corresponding to a turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) maximum of 10.5 m2 s−2. Spectrum analysis indicates an inertia subrange up to 5-km wavelength and multiple energy-containing spikes corresponding to a wide range of wavelengths. Manual analysis of GPS dropsonde data indic...

Tropical cyclone genesis frequency over the western North Pacific simulated in medium-resolution coupled general circulation models

Abstract: This study examines the tropical cyclone (TC) genesis frequency over the western North Pacific simulated in atmosphere–ocean coupled general circulation models from the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3. We first evaluate performances of eight models with atmospheric horizontal resolution of T63 or T106 by analyzing their daily-mean atmospheric outputs of twentieth-century climate simulations available from the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison database. The genesis frequency is validated against the best-track data issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency. Five of the eight models reproduce realistic horizontal distribution of the TC genesis with a large fraction over the 10°–20°N, 120°–150°E area. These five high-performance models also realistically simulate the summer–winter contrast of the frequency. However, detailed seasonal march is slightly unrealistic; four of the models overestimate the frequency in the early season (May–June) while all of them underestimate the frequency in the mature season (July–September). Reasons for these biases in the seasonal march for the five high-performance models are discussed using the TC genesis potential (GP) index proposed by Emanuel and Nolan (in Am Meteor Soc, pp 240–241, 2004). The simulated GP has seasonal biases consistent with those of the TC genesis frequency. For all five models, the seasonal biases in GP are consistent with those in environmental lower-tropospheric vorticity, vertical wind shear, and relative humidity, which can be attributed to the simulated behavior of monsoon trough. The observed trough migrates northward from the equatorial region to reach the 10°–20°N latitudinal band during the mature season and contributes to the TC frequency maximum, whereas the simulated trough migrates northward too rapidly and reaches this latitude band in the early season, leading to the overestimation of the TC genesis frequency. In the mature season, the simulated trough reaches as far as 15°–25°N, accompanied by a strong vertical shear south of the trough, providing an unfavorable condition for TC genesis. It is concluded that an adequate simulation of the monsoon trough behavior is essential for a better reproduction of the TC frequency seasonal march.

The Impacts of Atmospheric Stability on the Accuracy of Wind Speed Extrapolation Methods

Abstract: The building of utility-scale wind farms requires knowledge of the wind speed climatology at hub height (typically 80–100 m). As most wind speed measurements are taken at 10 m above ground level, efforts are being made to relate 10-m measurements to approximate hub-height wind speeds. One common extrapolation method is the power law, which uses a shear parameter to estimate the wind shear between a reference height and hub height. The shear parameter is dependent on atmospheric stability and should ideally be determined independently for different atmospheric stability regimes. In this paper, data from the Oklahoma Mesonet are used to classify atmospheric stability and to develop stability-dependent power law fits for a nearby tall tower. Shear exponents developed from one month of data are applied to data from different seasons to determine the robustness of the power law method. In addition, similarity theory-based methods are investigated as possible alternatives to the power law. Results indicate that the power law method performs better than similarity theory methods, particularly under stable conditions, and can easily be applied to wind speed data from different seasons. In addition, the importance of using co-located near-surface and hub-height wind speed measurements to develop extrapolation fits is highlighted.

Validation and assimilation of Seasat altimeter wave heights using the WAM wave model

Abstract: The third-generation wave model, WAM, is presently used to investigate the mutual consistency of the Seasat global data sets of scatterometer winds and altimeter wave heights for the complete Seasat period. While modeled and observed wave heights are in reasonable agreement on the global average, regional differences can be great and on occasion exceed 40 percent. These errors are primarily attributable to forcing wind field deficiencies; the friction velocities of the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres are found to be significantly underestimated in the high-wind belt of the Southern Hemisphere. A wave data assimilation scheme is presented in which the wave field is updated without change to the forcing wind field.

Comparing and contrasting extreme stratospheric events, including their coupling to the tropospheric circulation

Abstract: Recent work has emphasized the importance of stratosphere-troposphere coupling associated with extreme values of the polar vortex strength and stratospheric planetary wave heat flux during Northern Hemisphere winter. Here using ERA-Interim reanalysis data the evolution of the two types of events are compared. The life cycle of total (anomaly plus climatology) positive/negative heat flux events are associated with vertically deep high-latitude planetary wave structures and exhibit largely equal but opposite-signed impacts, including a net deceleration/acceleration of the polar vortex due to EP flux convergence/divergence and an equatorward/poleward tropospheric jet shift in the North Atlantic. The tropospheric wave pattern is westward propagating. High-latitude stratospheric vertical zonal wind shear plays a key role during both events. A comparison of the stratospheric events reveals that planetary wave events contribute to the development of vortex events. In particular, total negative heat flux events precede strong vortex events showing that strong vortex events represent true dynamical events involving significant wave-mean flow interaction. Coupling with the North Atlantic jet occurs preceding vortex events when wave-1 dominates the total eddy heat flux in the lower stratosphere since interference with wave-2 makes the impacts less clear. The tropospheric impacts in the North Atlantic associated with planetary wave events are found to be comparable if not larger than those following vortex events.