ALBERT

Description: Using quasi-simultaneous line of sight velocity measurements at multiple frequencies from the Hankasalmi Cooperative UK Twin Auroral Sounding System (CUTLASS) on the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), we calculate electron number densities using a derivation outlined in Gillies et al. [2010, 2012]. Backscatter targets were generated using the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) ionospheric modification facility at Tromsø, Norway. We use two methods on two case studies. The first approach is to use the dual frequency capability on CUTLASS and compare line of sight velocities between frequencies with a MHz or greater difference. The other method used the kHz frequency shifts automatically made by the SuperDARN radar during routine operations. Using ray tracing to obtain the approximate altitude of the backscatter, we demonstrate that for both methods, SuperDARN significantly overestimates N e compared to those obtained from the EISCAT incoherent scatter radar over the same time period. The discrepancy between the N e measurements of both radars may be largely due to SuperDARN sensitivity to backscatter produced by localized density irregularities which obscure the background levels.

Description: Recent observations from the Van Allen Probes Helium Oxygen Proton Electron (HOPE) instrument revealed a persistent depletion in the 1-10 eV ion population in the post-midnight sector during quiet times in the 2 〈 L 〈 3 region. This study explores the source of this ion depletion by developing an algorithm to classify 26 months of pitch angle distributions measured by the HOPE instrument. We correct the HOPE low energy fluxes for spacecraft potential using measurements from the Electric Field and Waves (EFW) instrument. A high percentage of low count pitch angle distributions is found in the post-midnight sector coupled with a low percentage of ion distributions peaked perpendicular to the field line. A peak in loss cone distributions in the dusk sector is also observed. These results characterize the nature of the dearth of the near 90 o pitch angle 1-10 eV ion population in the near-Earth post-midnight sector. This study also shows, for the first time, low energy HOPE differential number fluxes corrected for spacecraft potential and 1-10 eV H + fluxes at different levels of geomagnetic activity.

Description: A case study is presented of a tropical low that formed near Darwin, Australia, during the monsoon and subsequently intensified over land. The study is based on European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) analyses. Interpretations of the formation over the sea are given in terms of vorticity dynamics. The thermodynamic support for the intensification and maintenance of the low over land is investigated also. The analyses indicate that the intensification of the low depends on repeated bursts of deep convection occurring near the centre of the circulation that promote the further concentration of vorticity near the centre. This concentration of vorticity increases the local circulation about the centre, which amounts to increasing the local tangential wind speed and, through approximate gradient wind balance above the boundary layer, to a lowering of the central pressure. It is found that the horizontal transport of moisture into a mesoscale column centred on the low is approximately equal to the moisture lost by precipitation so that total precipitable water levels are not rapidly depleted over land. While the contribution to the overall moisture budget by surface fluxes is comparatively small, these fluxes are necessary to maintain conditionally unstable conditions near the vortex centre so that deep convective bursts can continue to occur there, even when the system is located far inland.

Description: We investigate the hypothesized effects of a uniform flow on the structural evolution of a tropical cyclone using a simple idealized, three-dimensional, convection-permitting, numerical model. The study addresses three outstanding basic questions concerning the effects of moist convection on the azimuthal flow asymmetries and provides a bridge between the problem of tropical cyclone intensification in a uniform flow and that in vertical shear. At any instant of time, explicit deep convection in the model generates flow asymmetries that tend to mask the induced flow asymmetries predicted by a dry, slab boundary-layer model of Shapiro, whose results are frequently invoked as a benchmark for characterizing the boundary-layer induced vertical motion for a translating storm. In sets of ensemble experiments in which the initial low-level moisture field is randomly perturbed, time-averaged ensemble mean fields in the mature stage show a coherent asymmetry in the vertical motion rising into the eyewall and in the total (horizontal) wind speed just above the boundary layer. The maximum ascent occurs about 45 degrees to the left of the vortex motion vector, broadly in support of Shapiro's results, in which it occurs ahead of the storm, and consistent with one earlier more complex numerical calculation by Frank and Ritchie. The total wind asymmetry just above the boundary layer has a maximum in the forward right sector, which is in contrast to the structure effectively prescribed by Shapiro based on an inviscid dry symmetric vortex translating in a uniform flow where, in an Earth-relative frame, the maximum is on the right. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: ABSTRACT The Van Allen Probes Helium Oxygen Proton Electron (HOPE) instrument measures the high energy tail of the thermal plasmasphere allowing study of topside ionosphere and inner magnetosphere coupling. We statistically analyze a 22 month period of HOPE data, looking at quiet times with a Kp index of less than 3. We investigate the high energy range of the plasmasphere, which consists of ions at energies between 1-10 eV and contains approximately 5% of total plasmaspheric density. Both the fluxes and partial plasma densities over this energy range show H + is depleted the most in the post-midnight sector (1-4 MLT), followed by O + and then He + . The relative depletion of each species across the post-midnight sector is not orderedby mass, which reveals ionospheric influence. We compare our results with keV energy electron data from HOPE and the Van Allen Probes Electric Fields and Waves (EFW) instrument spacecraft potential to rule out spacecraft charging. Our conclusion is that the post-midnight ion disappearance is due to diurnal ionospheric temperature variation and charge exchange processes.

Description: The debate on whether artificial reefs produce new fish or simply attract existing fish biomass continues due to the difficulty in distinguishing these processes, and there remains considerable doubt as to whether artificial reefs are a harmful form of habitat modification. The harm typically associated with attraction is that fish will be easier to harvest due to the existing biomass aggregating at a newly deployed reef. This outcome of fish attraction has not progressed past an anecdotal form, however, and is always perceived as a harmful process. We present a numerical model that simulates the effect that a redistributed fish biomass, due to an artificial reef, has on fishing catch per unit effort (CPUE). This model can be used to identify the scenarios (in terms of reef, fish, and harvest characteristics) that pose the most risk of exploitation due to fish attraction. The properties of this model were compared to the long-standing predictions by Bohnsack (1989) on the factors that increase the risk or the harm of attraction. Simulations revealed that attraction is not always harmful because it does not always increase maximum fish density. Rather, attraction sometimes disperses existing fish biomass making them harder to catch. Some attraction can be ideal, with CPUE lowest when attraction leads to an equal distribution of biomass between natural and artificial reefs. Simulations also showed that the outcomes from attraction depend on the characteristics of the target fish species, such that transient or pelagic species are often at more risk of harmful attraction than resident species. Our findings generally agree with Bohnsack's predictions, although we recommend distinguishing “mobility” and “fidelity” when identifying species most at risk from attraction, as these traits had great influence on patterns of harvest of attracted fish biomass. We created a simple model to simulate the attraction of fish to an artificial reef, to demonstrate that attraction is not necessarily a harmful process. We show that attraction can sometimes disperse fish biomass, making them harder to catch. We also show that transient, pelagic species are likely at more risk than resident fishes, over a wider range of scenarios.

Description: Analyses of thermodynamic data gathered from airborne dropwindsondes released from the upper troposphere during the Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) experiment are presented. We focus on two systems that finally became hurricanes Karl and Matthew , and one system ( Gaston ) that attained tropical storm status, but subsequently weakened and never redeveloped during five days of monitoring. Data for all events show that the largest values of total precipitable water are collocated with the surface trough and with values of convective available potential energy that seem high enough to support convective organization. These values coincide mostly with low values of convective inhibition. Vertical profiles of virtual potential temperature show little variability between soundings on a particular day, but the system means from day to day show a slight warming. In contrast, vertical profiles of pseudo-equivalent potential temperature, θ e , show much more variability between soundings on a particular day on account of the variability in moisture. In all systems, there was is a tendency for the lower troposphere to moisten, but in the non-developing system, the troposphere became progressively drier in the height range between approximately 2 and 9 km during the five days of observations. In the developing systems, the troposphere moistened. The most prominent difference between the non-developing system and the two developing systems was the much larger reduction of θ e between the surface and a height of 3 km, typically 25 K in the non-developing system, compared with only 17 K in the developing systems. Conventional wisdom would suggest that, for this reason, the convective downdraughts would be stronger in the non-developing system and would thereby act to suppress the development. Here we propose an alternative hypothesis in which the drier air weakens the convective updraughts and thereby the convective amplification of absolute vorticity necessary for development. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society

Description: We examine aspects of the thermodynamic structure of mature Atlantic hurricane Earl (2010) based on airborne dropwindsondes released from the upper troposphere during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment. Vertical sounding profiles of the data raise questions concerning the relative roles of isothermal expansion and relative humidity increase in elevating the equivalent potential temperature of air parcels spiralling inwards to the eyewall convection region. The observational results obtained for two successive days of this category 4 hurricane show that the isothermal expansion effect leads to roughly one half of the increment in equivalent potential temperature for boundary-layer air parcels moving between the region outside the eyewall and the eyewall and eye region. Copyright © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society

Description: A simulation of Hurricane Katrina (2005) using the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's operational model for tropical-cyclone prediction (TCLAPS) shows that the simulated vortex vacillates between almost symmetric and highly asymmetric phases. During the symmetric phase, the eyewall comprises elongated convective bands and both the low-level potential vorticity (PV) and pseudo-equivalent potential temperature θ e fields exhibit a ring structure, with the maximum at some radius from the vortex centre. During this phase the mean flow intensifies comparatively rapidly, as the maximum acceleration of the mean tangential wind occurs near the radius of maximum mean tangential wind (RMW). In contrast, during the asymmetric phase the eyewall is more polygonal, with vortical hot towers (VHTs) located at the vertices. The low-level PV and θ e fields have monopole structures with the maximum at the centre. The intensification rate is lower than during the symmetric phase because the mean tangential wind accelerates most rapidly well within the RMW. The symmetric-to-asymmetric transition is accompanied by the development of VHTs within the eyewall. The VHTs are shown to be initiated by barotropic–convective instability associated with the ring-like structure of PV in the eyewall where the convective instability is large. During the reverse asymmetric-to-symmetric transition, the VHTs weaken as the local vertical wind shear increases and the convective available potential energy is consumed by convection. The weakened VHTs move outwards, similar to vortex Rossby waves, and are stretched by the angular shear of the mean vortex. Simultaneously, the rapid filamentation zone outside the RMW weakens, becoming more favourable for the development of convection. The next symmetric phase emerges as the convection reorganizes into a more symmetric eyewall. It is proposed that vacillation cycles occur in young tropical cyclones and are distinct from the eyewall replacement cycles that tend to occur in strong and mature tropical cyclones. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

Description: We examine the physical constraints that must be satisfied to allow for a steady-state tropical cyclone in an isolated environment, paying particular attention to the need to replenish absolute angular momentum exactly at the rate that it is consumed and to the vanishing of the spin-up function above the frictional boundary layer. We conclude that it is unlikely that these conditions will be met simultaneously and question whether globally steady-state tropical cyclone solutions have merit. The implications for previous studies are discussed.