scholarly journals Exploration of turbulent heat fluxes and wind stress curl in WRF and ERA-Interim during wintertime mesoscale wind events around southeastern Greenland

2015 ◽  
Vol 120 (9) ◽  
pp. 3593-3609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice K. DuVivier ◽  
John J. Cassano
Author(s):  
Xiangzhou Song

AbstractUsing buoy observations from 2004 to 2010 and newly released atmospheric reanalysis and satellite altimetry-derived geostrophic currents from 1993 to 2017, the quantitative contribution of daily mean surface currents to air-sea turbulent heat flux and wind stress uncertainties in the Gulf Stream (GS) region is investigated based on bulk formulas. At four buoy stations, the daily mean latent (sensible) heat flux difference between the estimates with and without surface currents ranges from -18 (-4) to 20 (4) Wm-2, while the daily mean wind stress difference ranges from -0.04 to 0.02 Nm-2. The positive values indicate higher estimates with opposite directions between surface currents and absolute winds. The transition between positive and negative differences is significantly associated with synoptic-scale weather variations. The uncertainties based on buoy observations are approximately 7% and 3% for wind stress and turbulent heat fluxes, respectively. The new reanalysis and satellite geostrophic currents confirm the uncertainties identified by buoy observations with acceptable discrepancies and provide a spatial view of the uncertainty fields. The mean geostrophic currents are aligned with the surface wind along the GS; therefore, the turbulent heat fluxes and wind stress will be ‘underestimated’ with surface currents included. However, on both sides of the GS, the surface flow can be upwind due to possible mechanisms of eddy-mean flow interactions and recirculations, resulting in higher turbulent heat flux estimations. The wind stress and turbulent heat flux uncertainties experience significant seasonal variations and show long-term trends.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (17) ◽  
pp. 4701-4717 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. E. Harden ◽  
I. A. Renfrew ◽  
G. N. Petersen

A climatology of barrier winds along the southeastern coast of Greenland is presented based on 20 yr of winter months (1989–2008) from the ECMWF Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interim). Barrier wind events occur predominantly at two locations: Denmark Strait North (DSN; 67.7°N, 25.3°W) and Denmark Strait South (DSS; 64.9°N, 35.9°W). Events stronger than 20 m s−1 occur on average once per week during winter with considerable interannual variability—from 7 to 20 events per winter. The monthly frequency of barrier wind events correlates with the monthly North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) index with a correlation coefficient of 0.57 (0.31) at DSN (DSS). The associated total turbulent heat fluxes for barrier wind events (area averaged) were typically about 200 W m−2 with peak values of 400 W m−2 common in smaller regions. Area-averaged surface stresses were typically between 0.5 and 1 N m−2. Total precipitation rates were larger at DSS than DSN, both typically less than 1 mm h−1. The total turbulent heat fluxes were shown to have a large range as a result of a large range in 2-m air temperature. Two classes of barrier winds—warm and cold—were investigated and found to develop in different synoptic-scale situations. Warm barrier winds developed when there was a blocking high pressure over the Nordic seas, while cold barrier winds owed their presence to a train of cyclones channeling through the region.


Atmosphere ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Yuting Han ◽  
Yuxin Liu ◽  
Xingwei Jiang ◽  
Mingsen Lin ◽  
Yangang Li ◽  
...  

Using bulk formulas, two-year platform (fastened to the seabed) hourly observations from 2016 to 2017 in the East China Sea (121.6° E, 32.4° N) are used to investigate the role of the tide-induced surface elevation in changing the fixed observational height and modifying the momentum and air-sea turbulent heat fluxes. The semidiurnal tide-dominated elevation anomalies ranging from −3.6 to 3.9 m change the fixed platform observational height. This change causes hourly differences in the wind stress and latent and sensible heat fluxes between estimates with and without considering surface elevation, with values ranging from −1.5 × 10−3 Nm−2, −10.2 Wm−2, and −3.6 Wm−2 to 2.2 × 10−3 Nm−2, 8.4 Wm−2, and 4.6 Wm−2, respectively. More significant differences occur during spring tides. The differences show weak dependence on the temperature, indicating weak seasonal variations. The mean (maximum) difference percentage relative to the mean magnitude is approximately 3.5% (7%), 1.5% (3%), and 1.5% (3%) for the wind stress and latent and sensible heat fluxes, respectively. The boundary layer stability (BLS) can convert from near-neutral conditions to stable and unstable states in response to tide-induced changes in the observational height, with a probability of occurrence of 2%. Wind anomalies play dominant roles in determining the hourly anomalies of the latent heat flux, regardless of the state of the BLS. Extreme cases, including the cold air outbreak in 2016, tropical cyclones Meranti in 2016, and Ampil in 2018, are also examined. This study will facilitate future observation-reanalysis comparisons in the studied coastal region where ocean–atmosphere-land interactive processes are significant.


1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Argentini ◽  
G. Mastrantonio ◽  
A. Viola

Simultaneous acoustic Doppler sodar and tethersonde measurements were used to study some of the characteristics of the unstable boundary layer at Dumont d'Urville, Adélie Land, East Antarctica during the summer 1993–94. A description of the convective boundary layer and its behaviour in connection with the wind regime is given along with the frequency distribution of free convection episodes. The surface heat flux has been evaluated using the vertical velocity variance derived from sodar measurements. The turbulent exchange coefficients, estimated by coupling sodar and tethered balloon measurements, are in strong agreement with those present in literature for the Antarctic regions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Bennett ◽  
Bart Nijssen

<p>Machine learning (ML), and particularly deep learning (DL), for geophysical research has shown dramatic successes in recent years. However, these models are primarily geared towards better predictive capabilities, and are generally treated as black box models, limiting researchers’ ability to interpret and understand how these predictions are made. As these models are incorporated into larger models and pushed to be used in more areas it will be important to build methods that allow us to reason about how these models operate. This will have implications for scientific discovery that will ensure that these models are robust and reliable for their respective applications. Recent work in explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) has been used to interpret and explain the behavior of machine learned models.</p><p>Here, we apply new tools from the field of XAI to provide physical interpretations of a system that couples a deep-learning based parameterization for turbulent heat fluxes to a process based hydrologic model. To develop this coupling we have trained a neural network to predict turbulent heat fluxes using FluxNet data from a large number of hydroclimatically diverse sites. This neural network is coupled to the SUMMA hydrologic model, taking imodel derived states as additional inputs to improve predictions. We have shown that this coupled system provides highly accurate simulations of turbulent heat fluxes at 30 minute timesteps, accurately predicts the long-term observed water balance, and reproduces other signatures such as the phase lag with shortwave radiation. Because of these features, it seems this coupled system is learning physically accurate relationships between inputs and outputs. </p><p>We probe the relative importance of which input features are used to make predictions during wet and dry conditions to better understand what the neural network has learned. Further, we conduct controlled experiments to understand how the neural networks are able to learn to regionalize between different hydroclimates. By understanding how these neural networks make their predictions as well as how they learn to make predictions we can gain scientific insights and use them to further improve our models of the Earth system.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 2547-2564
Author(s):  
Georg Lackner ◽  
Daniel F. Nadeau ◽  
Florent Domine ◽  
Annie-Claude Parent ◽  
Gonzalo Leonardini ◽  
...  

AbstractRising temperatures in the southern Arctic region are leading to shrub expansion and permafrost degradation. The objective of this study is to analyze the surface energy budget (SEB) of a subarctic shrub tundra site that is subject to these changes, on the east coast of Hudson Bay in eastern Canada. We focus on the turbulent heat fluxes, as they have been poorly quantified in this region. This study is based on data collected by a flux tower using the eddy covariance approach and focused on snow-free periods. Furthermore, we compare our results with those from six Fluxnet sites in the Arctic region and analyze the performance of two land surface models, SVS and ISBA, in simulating soil moisture and turbulent heat fluxes. We found that 23% of the net radiation was converted into latent heat flux at our site, 35% was used for sensible heat flux, and about 15% for ground heat flux. These results were surprising considering our site was by far the wettest site among those studied, and most of the net radiation at the other Arctic sites was consumed by the latent heat flux. We attribute this behavior to the high hydraulic conductivity of the soil (littoral and intertidal sediments), typical of what is found in the coastal regions of the eastern Canadian Arctic. Land surface models overestimated the surface water content of those soils but were able to accurately simulate the turbulent heat flux, particularly the sensible heat flux and, to a lesser extent, the latent heat flux.


2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 1856-1862 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. B. Villas Bôas ◽  
O. T. Sato ◽  
A. Chaigneau ◽  
G. P. Castelão

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 381-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Rutgersson ◽  
A. Omstedt ◽  
Y. Chen

In this paper, which reports on part of the BALTEX project, various components of the heat balance over the Baltic Sea are calculated using a number of gridded meteorological databases. It is the heat exchange between the Baltic Sea surface and the atmosphere that is of interest. The databases have different origins, comprising synoptic data, data re-analysed with a 3D assimilation system, an ocean model forced with gridded synoptic data, ship data and satellite data. We compared the databases and found that the greatest variation between them is in the long- and short-wave radiation values. However, considerable upward long-wave radiation is followed by considerable downward short-wave radiation, so the total radiation component is partly compensated for in the total budget. The variation in the total heat transport in the databases therefore appears smaller (1.5±3 W m−2) as the average and one standard deviation. The turbulent heat fluxes estimated from satellite data have very low values; this can largely be explained by the method of calculating air temperature, which also produces an unrealistic stratification over the Baltic Sea. The ERA40 data was compared with measured values: there, we found a certain land influence even in the centre of the Baltic proper. The indicated turbulent heat fluxes were too large, mainly in the fall and winter, and the sensible heat flux was too large in a downward direction in spring and summer.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (22) ◽  
pp. 7611-7627 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Robertson

Abstract The biophysical response to a local change in land use is calculated using the HadGEM2-ES Earth system model. The biophysical temperature response is found to be a small residual of three large opposing flux responses: available energy, sensible heat, and latent heat. Deforestation reduces available energy, which is balanced by a reduction in heat lost via turbulent fluxes. However, the changes in turbulent heat fluxes are not simply a response to the reduction in available energy; rather, they are a direct response to land-use change, caused by reduced roughness length and, in the tropics, an increase in the Bowen ratio. Evaluation against satellite-derived observational datasets shows that in response to deforestation, the model has too much albedo-driven cooling and too little latent-heat-driven warming, leading to a large cooling bias.


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