ALBERT

Description: Winds at the Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) during the April–October period from 1948 to 2003 have been observed to shift to the north (up-valley direction) between late morning and afternoon on over 70% of the days without precipitation. Lake-breeze fronts that develop as a result of the differential heating between the air over the nearby Great Salt Lake and that over the lake’s surroundings are observed at SLC only a few times each month. Fewer lake-breeze fronts are observed during late July–early September than before or after that period. Interannual fluctuations in the areal extent of the shallow Great Salt Lake contribute to year-to-year variations in the number of lake-breeze frontal passages at SLC. Data collected during the Vertical Transport and Mixing Experiment (VTMX) of October 2000 are used to examine the structure and evolution of a lake-breeze front that moved through the Salt Lake Valley on 17 October. The onset of upslope and up-valley winds occurred within the valley prior to the passage of the lake-breeze front. The lake-breeze front moved at roughly 3 m s−1 up the valley and was characterized near the surface by an abrupt increase in wind speed and dewpoint temperature over a distance of 3–4 km. Rapid vertical mixing of aerosols at the top of the 600–800-m-deep boundary layer was evident as the front passed.

Description: Observations of the turbulent exchange between a river surface and the atmosphere in a mountainous area in southern Brazil are presented and discussed. A micrometeorological tower was installed directly above the surface of a 60-m-wide river. This paper describes the observed turbulent fluxes over 12 days of observations at this site. Eddy correlation sensible and latent heat fluxes are directed toward the river during daytime and from the river at night, and they are controlled by differences between water and air temperatures. The magnitude of the vertical fluxes between the river and the atmosphere increases during daytime with increasing temperature gradient up to a threshold, beyond which the increasing stability starts to dampen the fluxes. Water and air temperatures show very little variations across the width of the river, indicating that the measurements taken at one margin may be representative of the mean river exchange. Local scalar budgets show that daytime warming and moistening rates above the river are controlled by local transport from the riverbanks. The main vertical fluxes have a very small magnitude: 0.8 W m−2 for sensible heat and 1.1 W m−2 for latent heat. Events of very large sensible heat fluxes from the river to the atmosphere and very large latent heat fluxes from the atmosphere to the river happened on 3 days, following nights with a very deep fog layer in the valley. These events represented the passage of a warm and dry air mass down the river. A process to explain the occurrence of these large fluxes is suggested that is associated with differential fog dissipation over the valley.

Description: Continuous time series of soil water content over a period of more than 9 months for a midlatitude sandy loam soil covered by grass are calculated with the Campbell and the van Genuchten soil hydraulic functions and the Clapp–Hornberger, Cosby et al., and Rawls–Brakensiek parameter sets. The results are compared with soil water content observed at several soil depths, and the water balance components are evaluated. The Campbell soil hydraulic functions are often used by meteorologists, whereas the van Genuchten functions are widespread among hydrologists. The simulations are performed with the “VEG3D” soil–vegetation model in stand-alone mode forced by on-site meteorological observations. The soil water content and meteorological observations were obtained within the Regional Climate Project (REKLIP) at a site in the Rhine valley in southern Germany with 10-min temporal resolution. Apart from the different soil hydraulic functions and parameter sets, the effects of different lower boundary conditions and initializations on the simulations are compared in terms of statistical quantities like mean error, bias, correlation coefficient, and least squares fit. Large differences between the various combinations are found. For the situation considered in this paper, the van Genuchten–Clapp–Hornberger, the Campbell–Cosby et al., and the van Genuchten–Rawls–Brakensiek combinations give the best overall agreement with the observations.

Description: A vertical distribution formulation of liquid water content (LWC) for steady radiation fog was obtained and examined through the singular perturbation method. The asymptotic LWC distribution is a consequential balance among cooling, droplet gravitational settling, and turbulence in the liquid water budget of radiation fog. The cooling produces liquid water, which is depleted by turbulence near the surface. The influence of turbulence on the liquid water budget decreases with height and is more significant for shallow fogs than for deep fogs. The depth of the region of surface-induced turbulence can be characterized with a fog boundary layer (FBL). The behavior of the FBL bears some resemblance to the surface mixing layer in radiation fog. The characteristic depth of the FBL is thinner for weaker turbulence and stronger cooling, whereas if turbulence intensity increases or cooling rate decreases then the FBL will develop from the ground. The asymptotic formulation also reveals a critical turbulent exchange coefficient for radiation fog that defines the upper bound of turbulence intensity that a steady fog can withstand. The deeper a fog is, the stronger a turbulence intensity it can endure. The persistence condition for a steady fog can be parameterized by either the critical turbulent exchange coefficient or the characteristic depth of the FBL. If the turbulence intensity inside a fog is smaller than the turbulence threshold, the fog persists, whereas if the turbulence intensity exceeds the turbulence threshold or the characteristic depth of the FBL dominates the entire fog bank then the balance will be destroyed, leading to dissipation of the existing fog. The asymptotic formulation has a first-order approximation with respect to turbulence intensity. Verifications with numerical solutions and an observed fog event showed that it is more accurate for weak turbulence than for strong turbulence and that the computed LWC generally agrees with the observed LWC in magnitude.

Description: The eruption of the Mount Asama volcano on 16 September 2004 produced an ash cloud and led to ashfall in the Tokyo metropolitan area that lies on the Kanto Plain. Satellite images showed the ash cloud drifting toward the south in the morning but to the southeast in the afternoon. An aerosol lidar and a ceilometer, installed in the metropolitan area, continuously observed the southeastward-transported ash particles passing at altitudes of 2.6–4.5 km above mean sea level (MSL) in the nighttime. Results of meteorological analyses and numerical experiments showed that the south-to-southeasterly sea breezes and valley winds prevailed at altitudes below 1.5 km MSL over the Kanto Plain in the afternoon and the compensatory return flow (CRF) was formed aloft at altitudes of 1.5–4.5 km MSL as strong northwesterly winds, which were encouraged by a synoptic wind. The numerical experiments also showed that the direction of the ash transport turned from the south to the southeast following the formation of the northwesterly CRF. This demonstrates that the daytime ash transport was influenced by the CRF. The nocturnal ash transport, however, depended on the intensified synoptic wind. Thus, in addition to synoptic winds, the large-scale local wind circulation prevailing over the Kanto Plain can determine the direction of ash transport originating from the Mount Asama volcano and increase the possibility of ashfall in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Description: Urbanization, the expansion of built-up areas, is an important yet less-studied aspect of land use/land cover change in climate science. To date, most global climate models used to evaluate effects of land use/land cover change on climate do not include an urban parameterization. Here, the authors describe the formulation and evaluation of a parameterization of urban areas that is incorporated into the Community Land Model, the land surface component of the Community Climate System Model. The model is designed to be simple enough to be compatible with structural and computational constraints of a land surface model coupled to a global climate model yet complex enough to explore physically based processes known to be important in determining urban climatology. The city representation is based upon the “urban canyon” concept, which consists of roofs, sunlit and shaded walls, and canyon floor. The canyon floor is divided into pervious (e.g., residential lawns, parks) and impervious (e.g., roads, parking lots, sidewalks) fractions. Trapping of longwave radiation by canyon surfaces and solar radiation absorption and reflection is determined by accounting for multiple reflections. Separate energy balances and surface temperatures are determined for each canyon facet. A one-dimensional heat conduction equation is solved numerically for a 10-layer column to determine conduction fluxes into and out of canyon surfaces. Model performance is evaluated against measured fluxes and temperatures from two urban sites. Results indicate the model does a reasonable job of simulating the energy balance of cities.

Description: The estimation of atmospheric motion vectors from infrared and water vapor channels on the geostationary operational Indian National Satellite System Kalpana-1 has been attempted here. An empirical height assignment technique based on a genetic algorithm is used to determine the height of cloud and water vapor tracers. The cloud-motion-vector (CMV) winds at high and midlevels and water vapor winds (WVW) derived from Kalpana-1 show a very close resemblance to the corresponding Meteosat-7 winds derived at the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites when both are compared separately with radiosonde data. The 3-month mean vector difference (MVD) of high- and midlevel CMV and WVW winds derived from Kalpana-1 is very close to that of Meteosat-7 winds, when both are compared with radiosonde. When comparing with radiosonde, the low-level CMVs from Kalpana-1 have a higher MVD value than that of Meteosat-7. This may be due to the difference in spatial resolutions of Kalpana-1 and Meteosat-7.