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Winter Lake Breezes near the Great Salt Lake

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Abstract

Case studies of lake breezes during wintertime cold air pools in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley are examined. While summer breezes originating from the Great Salt Lake are typically deeper, of longer duration, and have higher wind speeds than winter breezes, the rate of inland penetration and cross-frontal temperature differences can be higher during the winter. The characteristics of winter breezes and the forcing mechanisms controlling them (e.g., snow cover, background flow, vertical stability profile, clouds, lake temperature, lake sheltering, and drainage pooling) are more complex and variable than those evident in summer. During the afternoon in the Salt Lake Valley, these lake breezes can lead to elevated pollution levels due to the transport of fine particle pollutants from over the Great Salt Lake, decreased vertical mixing depth, and increased vertical stability.

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Acknowledgments

The National Center for Atmospheric Research Earth Observing Laboratory provided field/data processing support through their Integrated Sounding System and Integrated Surface Flux System groups. We thank Professor C. David Whiteman leading the Persistent Cold Air Pool Study and the 50 local volunteers who participated in the study. We also thank the Utah Division of Air Quality for providing air quality data. We appreciate the invaluable time-height profile data and valuable comments provided by Neil Lareau and the mini-sodar data provided by Sebastian Hoch. We thank Larry Dunn and Randy Graham at the Salt Lake City National Weather Service and Professor Jim Steenburgh for valuable discussions. This research is supported primarily by grant ATM-0938397 and secondarily by ATM-0802282 from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

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  1. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, 135 S 1460 E Room 819 WBB, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-0110, USA

    Erik T. Crosman & John D. Horel

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  1. Erik T. Crosman
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Correspondence to Erik T. Crosman.

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Crosman, E.T., Horel, J.D. Winter Lake Breezes near the Great Salt Lake. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 159, 439–464 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-015-0117-6

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