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  • Springer Nature  (77,063)
  • American Meteorological Society
  • 2005-2009  (69,838)
  • 1950-1954  (16,978)
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  • 1
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Advances in computer power, new forecasting challenges, and new diagnostic techniques have brought about changes in the way atmospheric development and vertical motion are diagnosed in an operational setting. Many of these changes, such as improved model skill, model resolution, and ensemble forecasting, have arguably been detrimental to the ability of forecasters to understand and respond to the evolving atmosphere. The use of nondivergent wind in place of geostrophic wind would be a step in the right direction, but the advantages of potential vorticity suggest that its widespread adoption as a diagnostic tool on the west side of the Atlantic is overdue. Ertel potential vorticity (PV), when scaled to be compatible with pseudopotential vorticity, is generally similar to pseudopotential vorticity, so forecasters accustomed to quasigeostrophic reasoning through the height tendency equation can transfer some of their intuition into the Ertel-PV framework. Indeed, many of the differences between pseudopotential vorticity and Ertel potential vorticity are consequences of the choice of definition of quasigeostrophic PV and are not fundamental to the quasigeostrophic system. Thus, at its core, PV thinking is consistent with commonly used quasigeostrophic diagnostic techniques.
    Print ISSN: 0065-9401
    Electronic ISSN: 1943-3646
    Topics: Geography , Geosciences , Physics
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Synoptic and mesoscale meteorology underwent a revolution in the 1940s and 1950s with the widespread deployment of novel weather observations, such as the radiosonde network and the advent of weather radar. These observations provoked a rapid increase in our understanding of the structure and dynamics of the atmosphere by pioneering analysts such as Fred Sanders. The authors argue that we may be approaching an analogous revolution in our ability to study the structure and dynamics of atmospheric phenomena with the advent of probabilistic objective analyses. These probabilistic analyses provide not only best estimates of the state of the atmosphere (e.g., the expected value) and the uncertainty about this state (e.g., the variance), but also the relationships between all locations and all variables at that instant in time. Up until now, these relationships have been determined by sampling in time by, for example, case studies, composites, and time-series analysis. Here the authors propose a new approach, ensemble synoptic analysis, which exploits the information contained in probabilistic samples of analyses at one or more instants in time. One source of probabilistic analyses is ensemble-based state-estimation methods, such as ensemble-based Kalman filters. Analyses from such a filter may be used to study atmospheric phenomena and the relationships between fields and locations at one or more instants in time. After a brief overview of a research-based ensemble Kalman filter, illustrative examples of ensemble synoptic analysis are given for an extratropical cyclone, including relationships between the cyclone minimum sea level pressure and other synoptic features, statistically determined operators for potential-vorticity inversion, and ensemble-based sensitivity analysis.
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: The pioneering large-scale studies of cyclone frequency, location, and intensity conducted by Fred Sanders prompt similar questions about lesser-studied anticyclone development. The results of a climatology of closed anticyclones (CAs) at 200, 500, and 850 hPa, with an emphasis on the subtropics and midlatitudes, is presented to assess the seasonally varying distribution and hemispheric differences of these features. To construct the CA climatology, a counting program was applied to twice-daily 2.5° NCEP–NCAR reanalysis 200-, 500-, and 850-hPa geopotential height fields for the period 1950–2003. Stationary CAs, defined as those CAs that were located at a particular location for consecutive time periods, were counted only once. The climatology results show that 200-hPa CAs occur preferentially during summer over subtropical continental regions, while 500-hPa CAs occur preferentially over subtropical oceans in all seasons and over subtropical continents in summer. Conversely, 850-hPa CAs occur preferentially over oceanic regions beneath upper-level midocean troughs, and are most prominent in the Northern Hemisphere, and over midlatitude continents in winter. Three case studies of objectively identified CAs that produced heal waves over the United States, Europe, and Australia in 1995, 2003, and 2004, respectively, are presented to supplement the climatological results. The case studies, examining the subset of CAs than can produce heat waves, illustrate how climatologically hot continental tropical air masses produced over arid and semiarid regions of the subtropics and lower midlatitudes can become abnormally hot in conjunction with dynamically driven upper-level ridge amplification. Subsequently, these abnormally hot air masses are advected downstream away from their source regions in conjunction with transient disturbances embedded in anomalously strong westerly jets.
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Oklahoma Mesonetwork data are used to illustrate important atmospheric features that are not well shown by the usual synoptic data. For example, some shifts of wind from south to north that are shown as cold fronts on synoptic charts are not cold fronts by any plausible definition. As previously discussed by Fred Sanders and others, such errors in analysis can be reduced by knowledge of the wide variety of weather phenomena that actually exists, and by more attention to temperatures at the earth's surface as revealed by conventional synoptic data. Mesoscale data for four cases reinforce previous discussions of the ephemeral nature of fronts and deficiencies in the usual analyses of cold fronts. One type of misanalyzed case involves post-cold-frontal boundary layer air that is warmer than the prefrontal air. A second type is usually nocturnal, with a rise of local temperature during disruption of an inversion and a wind shift with later cooling that accompanies advection of a climatological gradient of temperature.
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: The advent of the polar front theory of cyclones in Norway early in the last century held that the development of fronts and air masses is central to understanding midlatitude weather phenomena. While work on fronts continues to this day, the concept of air masses has been largely forgotten, superseded by the idea of a continuum. The Norwegians placed equal emphasis on the thermodynamics of airmass formation and on the dynamical processes that moved air masses around; today, almost all the emphasis is on dynamics, with little published literature on diabatic processes acting on a large scale. In this essay, the author argues that a lack of understanding of large-scale diabatic processes leads to an incomplete picture of the atmosphere and contributes to systematic errors in medium- and long-range weather forecasts. At the same time, modern concepts centered around potential vorticity conservation and inversion lead one to a redefinition of the term "air mass" that may have some utility in conceptualizing atmospheric physics and in weather forecasting.
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Historically, the atmospheric sciences have tended to treat problems of weather and climate separately. The real physical system, however, is a continuum, with short-term (minutes to days) “weather” fluctuations influencing climate variations and change, and, conversely, more slowly varying aspects of the system (typical time scales of a season or longer) affecting the weather that is experienced. While this past approach has served important purposes, it is becoming increasingly apparent that in order to make progress in addressing many socially important problems, an improved understanding of the connections between weather and climate is required. This overview summarizes the progress over the last few decades in the understanding of the phenomena and mechanisms linking weather and climate variations. The principal emphasis is on developments in understanding key phenomena and processes that bridge the time scales between synoptic-scale weather variability (periods of approximately 1 week) and climate variations of a season or longer. Advances in the ability to identify synoptic features, improve physical understanding, and develop forecast skill within this time range are reviewed, focusing on a subset of major, recurrent phenomena that impact extratropical wintertime weather and climate variations over the Pacific–North American region. While progress has been impressive, research has also illuminated areas where future gains are possible. This article concludes with suggestions on near-term directions for advancing the understanding and capabilities to predict the connections between weather and climate variations.
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Fred Sanders' career extended over 55 yr, touching upon many of the revolutionary transformations in the field of meteorology during that period. In this paper, his contributions to the transformation of synoptic meteorology, his research into the nature of explosive cyclogenesis, and related advances in the ability to predict these storms are reviewed. In addition to this review, the current status of forecasting oceanic cyclones 4.5 days in advance is presented, illustrating the progress that has been made and the challenges that persist, especially for forecasting those extreme extratropical cyclones that are marked by surface wind speeds exceeding hurricane force. Last, Fred Sanders' participation in a forecast for the historic 1947 snowstorm (that produced snowfall amounts in the New York City area that set records at that time) is reviewed along with an attempt to use today's operational global model to simulate this storm using data that were available at the time. The study reveals the predictive limitations involved with this case based on the scarcity of upper-air data in 1947, while confirming Fred Sanders' forecasting skills when dealing with these types of major storm events, even as a young aviation forecaster at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: A case study of a double dryline on 22 May 2002 is presented. Mobile, 3-mm-wavelength Doppler radars from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Wyoming (Wyoming cloud radar) were used to collect very fine resolution vertical-velocity data in the vicinity of each of the moisture gradients associated with the drylines. Very narrow (50–100 m wide) channels of strong upward vertical velocity (up to 8 m s–1) were measured in the convergence zone of the easternmost dryline, larger in magnitude than reported with previous drylines. Distinct areas of descending motion were evident to the east and west of both drylines. Radar data are interpreted in the context of other observational platforms available during the International H2O Project (IHOP-2002). a variational ground-based mobile radar data processing technique was developed and applied to pseudo-dual-Doppler data collected during a rolling range-height indicator deployment. It was found that there was a secondary (vertical) circulation normal to the easternmost moisture gradient; the circulation comprised an easterly component near-surface flow to the east, a strong upward vertical component in the convergence zone, a westerly return, flow above the convective boundary layer, and numerous regions of descending motion, the most prominent approximately 3–5 km to the east of the surface convergence zone.
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Fred Sanders' teaching and research contributions in the area of quasigeostrophic theory are highlighted in this paper. The application of these contributions is made to the topic of extreme cold-season precipitation events in the Saint Lawrence valley in the northeastern United States and southern Quebec. This research focuses on analyses of Saint Lawrence valley heavy precipitation events. Synoptic- and planetary-scale circulation anomaly precursors are typically identified several days prior to these events. These precursors include transient upper-level troughs, strong moisture transports into the region, and anomalously large precipitable water amounts. The physical insight of Fred Sanders' work is used in the analysis of these composite results. Further details of this insight are provided in analyses of one case of heavy precipitation.
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Sanders designed a barotropic tropical cyclone (TC) track prediction model for the North Atlantic TC basin that became known as the Sanders barotropic (SANBAR) model. It predicted the streamfunction of the deeplayer mean winds (tropical circulation vertically averaged from 1000 to 100 hPa) that represents the vertically averaged tropical circulations. Originally, the wind input for the operational objective analysis (OA) consisted of winds measured by radiosondes and 44 bogus winds provided by analysis at the National Hurricane Center (NHC), which corresponded to the vertically averaged flow over sparsely observed tropical, subtropical, and midlatitude oceanic regions. The model covered a fixed regional area and had a grid size of ~ 154 km. It estimated the initial storm motion solely on the basis of the large-scale flow from the OA, not taking into account the observed storm motion. During 1970, the SANBAR model became the first dynamical TC track model to be run operationally at NHC. Track forecasts of SANBAR were verified from the 1971 TC season when track model verifications began at NHC until its retirement after the 1989 Atlantic TC season. The average annual SANBAR forecast track errors were verified relative to Climatology and Persistence (CLIPER), the standard no-skill track forecast. Comparison with CLIPER determines the skill of track forecast methods. Verifications are presented for two different versions of the SANBAR model system used operationally during 1973–84 and 1985–89. In homogeneous comparisons (i.e., includes only forecasts for the same initial times) for the former period, SANBAR's track forecasts were slightly better than CLIPER at 24–48-h forecast intervals; however, from 1985 to 1989 the average SANBAR track forecast errors from 24–72 h were ~10% more skillful than homogeneous CLIPER track forecasts.
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