scholarly journals Meridional temperature gradient and the midlatitude storm track

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lauren Carter

<p>The southern hemisphere’s atmospheric circulation experiences several annual and seasonal changes that are well documented and studied. The teleconnections between different variables are verified and used to explain variability in everyday climate and weather. Theories using physics are taught and published in textbooks to help us understand the connectivity and complexity of such a system. One theory is the meridional temperature gradient has a direct impact on the storm track. This thesis investigates that theory using the ERA-Interim dataset. The temperature gradient is a direct result of the temperature field, and depending on the latitudes you decide in which to constrain your gradient, the gradient experiences several changes. In the high latitudes, the southern annual oscillation created a two peaked pattern; the mid-latitudes display the expected seasonal mono peak pattern. The strong correlations seen in the high latitudes means that the gradient is driven by the patterns experienced at higher latitudes.  The independence of behaviours displayed by the ocean sectors led to the research investigating the influences, looking at not just the hemisphere, but also each basin separately. The Pacific and Indian Ocean showed in several results to act independently from one another, in temperature gradients, wind field, and storm track position.  The strong correlations between the temperature gradient and the wind field, as well as the storm track field show that the two are connected, as the theory suggests. If temperatures rise in the tropics, or decrease in the poles, then the temperature gradient will steepen. The pressure gradient force increases which pushes the thermal wind balance poleward, shifting the position of the westerlies. The area with the largest variation in the wind speed becomes the storm track, which would also shift poleward. Climatic factors such as the southern oscillation index, southern annular mode or Indian Ocean dipole show slight correlations with the temperature field, but have little to no influence on the temperature gradient itself.  Precipitation levels in New Zealand are highly variable due to the nature of the countries location and topography. What was found was little connection between the northern part of the country and the storm track. However, closer proximity to the storm track, such as the south of the country, do experience a small amount of variation due to the storm tracks influence.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lauren Carter

<p>The southern hemisphere’s atmospheric circulation experiences several annual and seasonal changes that are well documented and studied. The teleconnections between different variables are verified and used to explain variability in everyday climate and weather. Theories using physics are taught and published in textbooks to help us understand the connectivity and complexity of such a system. One theory is the meridional temperature gradient has a direct impact on the storm track. This thesis investigates that theory using the ERA-Interim dataset. The temperature gradient is a direct result of the temperature field, and depending on the latitudes you decide in which to constrain your gradient, the gradient experiences several changes. In the high latitudes, the southern annual oscillation created a two peaked pattern; the mid-latitudes display the expected seasonal mono peak pattern. The strong correlations seen in the high latitudes means that the gradient is driven by the patterns experienced at higher latitudes.  The independence of behaviours displayed by the ocean sectors led to the research investigating the influences, looking at not just the hemisphere, but also each basin separately. The Pacific and Indian Ocean showed in several results to act independently from one another, in temperature gradients, wind field, and storm track position.  The strong correlations between the temperature gradient and the wind field, as well as the storm track field show that the two are connected, as the theory suggests. If temperatures rise in the tropics, or decrease in the poles, then the temperature gradient will steepen. The pressure gradient force increases which pushes the thermal wind balance poleward, shifting the position of the westerlies. The area with the largest variation in the wind speed becomes the storm track, which would also shift poleward. Climatic factors such as the southern oscillation index, southern annular mode or Indian Ocean dipole show slight correlations with the temperature field, but have little to no influence on the temperature gradient itself.  Precipitation levels in New Zealand are highly variable due to the nature of the countries location and topography. What was found was little connection between the northern part of the country and the storm track. However, closer proximity to the storm track, such as the south of the country, do experience a small amount of variation due to the storm tracks influence.</p>


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1792
Author(s):  
Bingbing Dong ◽  
Yu Gu ◽  
Changsheng Gao ◽  
Zhu Zhang ◽  
Tao Wen ◽  
...  

In recent years, the new type design of current transformer with bushing structure has been widely used in the distribution network system due to its advantages of miniaturization, high mechanical strength, maintenance-free, safety and environmental protection. The internal temperature field distribution is an important characteristic parameter to characterize the thermal insulation and aging performance of the transformer, and the internal temperature field distribution is mainly derived from the joule heat generated by the primary side guide rod after flowing through the current. Since the electric environment is a transient field and the thermal environment changes slowly with time as a steady field under the actual conditions, it is more complex and necessary to study the electrothermal coupling field of current transformer (CT). In this paper, a 3D simulation model of a new type design of current transformer for distribution network based on electric-thermal coupling is established by using finite element method (FEM) software. Considering that the actual thermal conduction process of CT is mainly by conduction, convection and radiation, three different kinds of boundary conditions such as solid heat transfer boundary condition, heat convection boundary condition and surface radiation boundary condition are applied to the CT. Through the model created above, the temperature rise process and the distribution characteristics of temperature gradient of the inner conductor under different current, different ambient temperatures and different core diameters conditions are studied. Meanwhile, the hottest temperature and the maximum temperature gradient difference are calculated. According to this, the position of weak insulation of the transformer is determined. The research results can provide a reference for the factory production of new type design of current transformer.


2011 ◽  
Vol 199-200 ◽  
pp. 1492-1495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo Shun Wang ◽  
Rong Fu ◽  
Liang Zhao

The simulation calculation on the temperature field of the disc brake system on high-speed trains under the working condition of constant speed at 50Km/h is made. A steady-state calculation model is established according to the actual geometric size of a brake disc and a brake pad, and the analog calculation and simulation on the temperature field of the brake disc and the brake pad by using the large-scale nonlinear finite element software ABAQUS are carried out. The distribution rules of the temperature field of the brake disc and the brake pad under the working condition of constant speed are made known. The surface temperature of the brake disc at friction radius is the highest, with a band distribution for temperature. There exists a temperature flex point in the direction of thickness, of which the thickness occupies 15% of that of the brake disc; due to the small volume of the brake pad, the temperature gradient of the whole brake pad is not sharp, and larger temperature gradient occurs only on the contact surface.


2017 ◽  
Vol 835 ◽  
pp. 170-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sayan Das ◽  
Shubhadeep Mandal ◽  
Suman Chakraborty

The motion of a viscous droplet in unbounded Poiseuille flow under the combined influence of bulk-insoluble surfactant and linearly varying temperature field aligned in the direction of imposed flow is studied analytically. Neglecting fluid inertia, thermal convection and shape deformation, asymptotic analysis is performed to obtain the velocity of a force-free surfactant-laden droplet. The droplet speed and direction of motion are strongly influenced by the interfacial transport of surfactant, which is governed by surface Péclet number. The present study is focused on the following two limiting situations of surfactant transport: (i) surface-diffusion-dominated surfactant transport considering small surface Péclet number, and (ii) surface-convection-dominated surfactant transport considering high surface Péclet number. Thermocapillary-induced Marangoni stress, the strength of which relative to viscous stress is represented by the thermal Marangoni number, has a strong influence on the distribution of surfactant on the droplet surface. The present study shows that the motion of a surfactant-laden droplet in the combined presence of temperature and imposed Poiseuille flow cannot be obtained by a simple superposition of the following two independent results: migration of a surfactant-free droplet in a temperature gradient, and the motion of a surfactant-laden droplet in a Poiseuille flow. The temperature field not only affects the axial velocity of the droplet, but also has a non-trivial effect on the cross-stream velocity of the droplet in spite of the fact that the temperature gradient is aligned with the Poiseuille flow direction. When the imposed temperature increases in the direction of the Poiseuille flow, the droplet migrates towards the flow centreline. The magnitude of both axial and cross-stream velocity components increases with the thermal Marangoni number. However, when the imposed temperature decreases in the direction of the Poiseuille flow, the magnitude of both axial and cross-stream velocity components may increase or decrease with the thermal Marangoni number. Most interestingly, the droplet moves either towards the flow centreline or away from it. The present study shows a critical value of the thermal Marangoni number beyond which the droplet moves away from the flow centreline which is in sharp contrast to the motion of a surfactant-laden droplet in isothermal flow, for which the droplet always moves towards the flow centreline. Interestingly, we show that the above picture may become significantly altered in the case where the droplet is not a neutrally buoyant one. When the droplet is less dense than the suspending medium, the presence of gravity in the direction of the Poiseuille flow can lead to cross-stream motion of the droplet away from the flow centreline even when the temperature increases in the direction of the Poiseuille flow. These results may bear far-reaching consequences in various emulsification techniques in microfluidic devices, as well as in biomolecule synthesis, vesicle dynamics, single-cell analysis and nanoparticle synthesis.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-61
Author(s):  
Hyodae Seo ◽  
Hajoon Song ◽  
Larry W. O’Neill ◽  
Matthew R. Mazloff ◽  
Bruce D. Cornuelle

AbstractThis study examines the role of the relative wind (RW) effect (wind relative to ocean current) in the regional ocean circulation and extratropical storm track in the South Indian Ocean. Comparison of two high-resolution regional coupled model simulations with/without the RW effect reveals that the most conspicuous ocean circulation response is the significant weakening of the overly energetic anticyclonic standing eddy off Port Elizabeth, South Africa, a biased feature ascribed to upstream retroflection of the Agulhas Current (AC). This opens a pathway through which the AC transports the warm and salty water mass from the subtropics, yielding marked increases in sea surface temperature (SST), upward turbulent heat flux (THF), and meridional SST gradient in the Agulhas retroflection region. These thermodynamic and dynamic changes are accompanied by the robust strengthening of the local low-tropospheric baroclinicity and the baroclinic wave activity in the atmosphere. Examination of the composite lifecycle of synoptic-scale storms subjected to the high THF events indicates a robust strengthening of the extratropical storms far downstream. Energetics calculations for the atmosphere suggest that the baroclinic energy conversion from the basic flow is the chief source of increased eddy available potential energy, which is subsequently converted to eddy kinetic energy, providing for the growth of transient baroclinic waves. Overall, the results suggest that the mechanical and thermal air-sea interactions are inherently and inextricably linked together to substantially influence the extratropical storm tracks in the South Indian Ocean.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1193
Author(s):  
Chuchu Xu ◽  
Mi Yan ◽  
Liang Ning ◽  
Jian Liu

The upper-level jet stream, a narrow band of maximum wind speed in the mid-latitude westerlies, exerts a considerable influence on the global climate by modulating the transport and distribution of momentum, heat and moisture. In this study by using four high-resolution models in the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase 3, the changes of position and intensity of the northern hemisphere westerly jet at 200 hPa in summer during the mid-Holocene (MH), as well as the related mechanisms, are investigated. The four models show similar performance on the westerly jet. At the hemispheric scale, the simulated westerly jet has a poleward shift during the MH compared to the preindustrial period. The warming in arctic and cooling in the tropics during the MH are caused by the orbital changes of the earth and the precipitation changes, and it could lead to the weakened meridional temperature gradient and pressure gradient, which might account for the poleward shift of the westerly jet from the thermodynamic perspective. From the dynamic perspective, two maximum centers of eddy kinetic energy are simulated over the North Pacific and North Atlantic with the north deviation, which could cause the northward movement of the westerly jet. The weakening of the jet stream is associated with the change of the Hadley cell and the meridional temperature gradient. The largest weakening is over the Pacific Ocean where both the dynamic and the thermodynamic processes have weakening effects. The smallest weakening is over the Atlantic Ocean, and it is induced by the offset effects of dynamic processes and thermodynamic processes. The weakening over the Eurasia is mainly caused by the dynamic processes.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 1487-1507 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kiefer ◽  
E. Arnone ◽  
A. Dudhia ◽  
M. Carlotti ◽  
E. Castelli ◽  
...  

Abstract. We examine volume mixing ratios (vmr) retrieved from limb emission spectra recorded with the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) on board Envisat. In level 2 (L2) data products of three different retrieval processors, which perform one dimensional (1-D) retrievals, we find significant differences between species' profiles from ascending and descending orbit parts. The relative differences vary systematically with time of the year, latitude, and altitude. In the lower stratosphere their monthly means can reach maxima of 20% for CFC-11, CFC-12, HNO3, H2O, 10% for CH4 and N2O. Relative differences between monthly means of 1-D retrieval results and of the true atmospheric state can be expected to reach half of these percentage values, while relative differences in single vmr profiles might well exceed those numbers. Often there are no physical or chemical reasons for these differences, so they are an indicator for a problem in the data processing. The differences are generally largest at locations where the meridional temperature gradient of the atmosphere is strong. On the contrary, when performing the retrieval with a tomographic two dimensional (2-D) retrieval, L2 products generally do not show these differences. This suggests that inhomogeneities in the temperature field, and possibly in the species' fields, which are accounted for in the 2-D algorithm and not in standard 1-D processors, may cause significant deviations in the results. Inclusion of an externally given adequate temperature gradient in the forward model of a 1-D processor helps to reduce the observed differences. However, only the full tomographic 2-D approach is suitable to resolve the horizontal inhomogeneities. Implications for the use of the 1-D data, e.g. for validation, are discussed. The dependence of the ascending/descending differences on the observation strategy suggests that this problem may affect 1-D retrievals of infrared limb sounders, if the line of sight of the instrument has a significant component in the direction of the horizontal temperature variation.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S239) ◽  
pp. 513-513
Author(s):  
D. Skandera ◽  
W.-Ch. Müller

AbstractSpectral properties of convective magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in two and three dimensions are studied by means of direct numerical simulations (Skandera D. & Müller W.-C. 2006). The investigated system is set up with a mean horizontal temperature gradient in order to avoid a development of elevator instabilities in a fully periodic box. All simulations are performed without mean magnetic field. The applied resolution is 5123 and 20482. The MHD equation are solved by a numerical code (Müller & Biskamp 2000) that uses a standard pseudospectral scheme. For removing of aliasing errors a spherical truncation method is employed. Obtained results are compared with predictions of various existing phenomenological theories for magnetohydrodynamic and convective turbulence (Müller & Biskamp 2000). While the three-dimensional system is found to operate in a Kolmogorov-like regime where buoyant forces have a negligible impact on the turbulence dynamics (relatively low Rayleigh number achieved in the simulation; Ra ∼106), the two-dimensional system exhibits interesting irregular quasi-oscillations between a buoyancy dominated Bolgiano-Obukhov-like regime of turbulence and a standard Iroshnikov-Kraichnan-like regime of turbulence (Müller & Biskamp 2000). The most important parameter determining the turbulent regime of 2D magnetoconvection, apart from a high Rayleigh number, seems to be the mutual alignment of velocity and magnetic fields. The non-linear dynamics and the interplay between individual fields are examined with different transfer functions that confirm basic assumptions about directions of energy transfer in spectral space. Kinetic, magnetic and temperature energy are transported by a turbulent cascade from large to smaller scales. The local/nonlocal character of the transport is tested for several individual terms in the governing equations. Moreover, other statistical quantities, e.g. probability density functions, are computed as well. A passive character of the temperature field in the investigated three-dimensional magnetoconvection is supported by computations of intermittency using extended self-similarity. The intermittency of the Elsasser field z+ is in agreement with results from numerical simulations of isotropic MHD turbulence (Müller & Biskamp 2000). The intermittency of the temperature field is found to approximately agree with results of passive scalar measurements in hydrodynamic turbulence (Ruiz-Chavarria, Baudet & Ciliberto 1996).


2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 1948-1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. England ◽  
Caroline C. Ummenhofer ◽  
Agus Santoso

Abstract Interannual rainfall extremes over southwest Western Australia (SWWA) are examined using observations, reanalysis data, and a long-term natural integration of the global coupled climate system. The authors reveal a characteristic dipole pattern of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies during extreme rainfall years, remarkably consistent between the reanalysis fields and the coupled climate model but different from most previous definitions of SST dipoles in the region. In particular, the dipole exhibits peak amplitudes in the eastern Indian Ocean adjacent to the west coast of Australia. During dry years, anomalously cool waters appear in the tropical/subtropical eastern Indian Ocean, adjacent to a region of unusually warm water in the subtropics off SWWA. This dipole of anomalous SST seesaws in sign between dry and wet years and appears to occur in phase with a large-scale reorganization of winds over the tropical/subtropical Indian Ocean. The wind field alters SST via anomalous Ekman transport in the tropical Indian Ocean and via anomalous air–sea heat fluxes in the subtropics. The winds also change the large-scale advection of moisture onto the SWWA coast. At the basin scale, the anomalous wind field can be interpreted as an acceleration (deceleration) of the Indian Ocean climatological mean anticyclone during dry (wet) years. In addition, dry (wet) years see a strengthening (weakening) and coinciding southward (northward) shift of the subpolar westerlies, which results in a similar southward (northward) shift of the rain-bearing fronts associated with the subpolar front. A link is also noted between extreme rainfall years and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Namely, in some years the IOD acts to reinforce the eastern tropical pole of SST described above, and to strengthen wind anomalies along the northern flank of the Indian Ocean anticyclone. In this manner, both tropical and extratropical processes in the Indian Ocean generate SST and wind anomalies off SWWA, which lead to moisture transport and rainfall extremes in the region. An analysis of the seasonal evolution of the climate extremes reveals a progressive amplification of anomalies in SST and atmospheric circulation toward a wintertime maximum, coinciding with the season of highest SWWA rainfall. The anomalies in SST can appear as early as the summertime months, however, which may have important implications for predictability of SWWA rainfall extremes.


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