Surface Meteorology and Air–Sea Fluxes in the Southwestern Tropical Atlantic Ocean

Author(s):  
Marcelo Dourado ◽  
Carlos Lentini

<p> Recent studies suggest that the Tropical Atlantic Warm Pool (PQAT) contributes to modulate the variability of the ZCIT in the Atlantic Ocean basin and, consequently, the precipitation regime in Brazilian northeastern. Hourly surface meteorology observations from the PIRATA buoy at 19°S, 34°W from August 2010 to November 2018 was used to characterize and estimate the exchanges of heat, freshwater, and momentum between the ocean and the atmosphere over the Tropical. We focus here on recent efforts to observe the surface meteorology and air-sea fluxes using those data to gain insights into how atmospheric variability may govern the structure and variability of the upper ocean there at diurnal and seasonal time scales. The surface fluxes are calculated using the COARE 3.0 algorithm, positive values are to the ocean. Using the observations collected from the mooring deployments, we developed a good understanding of the annual march of the surface forcing of the ocean by the atmosphere. During spring (March, April) mean SST and air temperature are the hottest of the year, 28<sup>o</sup>C and 26.7<sup>o</sup>C, respectively; SST is greater than air temperature all over the year, 1<sup>o</sup>C on average. Wind speed is minimum, the air is drier and there is a peak of precipitation in April. During the autumn (August, September), mean SST and air temperature are the coldest of the year, 24.5<sup>o</sup>C and 23.6<sup>o</sup>C. Wind speed increases form 4.4m/s in March to 5.9 m/s in December. The monthly averaged incoming shortwave radiation in July was the lowest of the whole year and maximum in December. Net longwave radiation shows an inverse variability, i.e., maximum in the winter, minimum in the summer. This occurs because the winter air is drier than in the summer. Sensible heat flux is maximum in August due to the increase of the wind speed and an increase of the air-sea temperature difference. Latent flux is higher between April and August due to an increase in wind speed and a drier atmosphere. In the summer the humidity increases and, consequently, the latent heat flux diminishes. Finally, the net heat flux, positive between January and March, is negative between April and August (maximum -36W/m<sup>2</sup> in July ) and, again, positive between September and December, maximum +116 W/m<sup>2</sup> in December.</p>

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 2295-2309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenchao Ma ◽  
Jun Asanuma ◽  
Jianqing Xu ◽  
Yuichi Onda

Abstract. A highly valuable database of long-term hydrometeorological measurements is presented, containing in situ observations for a period of 37 years from a well-maintained grassland in the north-east of Japan. The observations include shortwave radiation, net radiation, air and dew point temperatures at three elevations, soil temperature at four depths, sensible heat flux, soil heat flux, wind speed, relative humidity, air pressure and precipitation. The heights of measurements are 1.6, 12.5 and 29.5 m above ground, with the soil-layer observations at depths of 0.02, 0.1, 0.5 and 1 m. This high-quality database includes four temporal resolutions of 10 s, 0.5 h, 1 h and 24 h, with the hourly data presented here. Monthly and annual statistics are presented at the database web page of the Center for Research in Isotopes and Environmental Dynamics and Prediction of the University of Tsukuba, http://doi.org/10.24575/0001.198108. We validated the data by comparing them with published data from the local meteorological agency in Tateno operated by the Japan Metrological Agency, including the average, maximum and minimum values of air temperature, shortwave radiation, wind speed, relative humidity and precipitation. We have generated a daily downward longwave radiation time series with a method developed by Kondo and Xu (1997) based on the observations from the database. This constructed time series agrees well with observations collected between 2002 and 2006, as evaluated based on the values of the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (=0.947) and percent bias (=1.486). For the whole database, annually averaged values show a positive trend in precipitation, air temperature, shortwave radiation, net radiation and sensible heat flux over the past 37 years, with a negative trend detected for wind speed, soil heat flux and soil temperature.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline R. Magee ◽  
Chin H. Wu

Abstract. Water temperatures in three morphometrically different lakes are simulated using a one-dimensional hydrodynamic lake model over the century (1911–2014) to elucidate the effects of increasing air temperature and decreasing wind speed on lake thermal variables (water temperature, stratification dates, strength of stratification, and surface heat fluxes). During the study period, epilimnetic temperatures increased, hypolimnetic temperatures decreased, and the length of the stratified season increased for the study lakes due to earlier stratification onset and later fall overturn. Additionally, there was an abrupt change in epilimnion temperature after 1930 in both Lake Mendota and Lake Wingra, and three changes, after 1934, 1995, and 2008 for Fish Lake. There was a significant change in the slope of trend of stratification duration after 1940 in Lake Mendota and a significant change in trend after 1981 for Fish Lake. Schmidt stability showed a statistically significant increasing trend for both deep lakes, with the larger trend and greater variability in the larger surface area lake. Sensible heat flux in all three lakes increases over the simulation period while longwave heat flux decreases. The shallow study lake had a greater change in latent heat flux and net heat flux, illustrating the role of lake depth to surface heat fluxes. Sensible heat flux in all three lakes had similar timing of abrupt changes, but the magnitude of the change increased with increasing depth. Abrupt changes in latent heat flux appear to be independent of lake morphometry, indicating that the timing of change may be primarily driven by climate. Perturbing drivers showed that increasing air temperature and decreasing wind speed caused earlier stratification onset and later fall overturn. For hypolimnetic water temperature, however, increasing air temperature warmed bottom waters while decreasing wind speed cooled bottom waters, indicating that the change of hypolimnetic temperatures globally may be influenced by local changes in wind speed. Overall, lake depth impacts the presence of stratification and magnitude of Schmidt stability, while lake surface area drives differences in hypolimnion temperature, hypolimnetic heating, variability of Schmidt stability, and stratification onset and fall overturn dates.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenchao Ma ◽  
Jun Asanuma ◽  
Jianqing Xu ◽  
Yuichi Onda

Abstract. A highly valuable database of long-term hydro–meteorological measurements is presented, containing in situ observations for a period of 37 years from well-maintained grassland in the north-east of Japan. The observations include the shortwave radiation, net radiation, the air and dew point temperatures at three elevations, the soil temperature at four depths, the sensible heat flux, soil heat flux, wind speed, relative humidity, air pressure and precipitation. The heights of measurements are 1.6 m, 12.5 m and 29.5 m above ground, with the soil-layer observations at depths of −0.02 m, −0.1 m, −0.5 m and −1 m. This high-quality database includes the four temporal resolutions of 10 s, 0.5 h, 1 h and 24 h, with the hourly data presented here. The monthly and annual statistics are presented at the database web page of the Center for Research in Isotopes and Environmental Dynamics and Prediction of the University of Tsukuba, http://doi.org/10.24575/0001.198108 . We have validated the data quality by comparing with published data from the local meteorological agency in Tateno operated by the Japan Metrological Agency, including the average, maximum and minimum values of air temperature, shortwave radiation, wind speed, relative humidity, and precipitation. We have generated a daily downward longwave radiation time series with a method developed by Konto and Xu (1997) based on the observations from the database. This constructed time series agrees well with observations collected between 2002 to 2006, as evaluated based on the values of the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (=0.947) and the percent bias (=1.486). For the whole database, annually averaged values give an obvious positive trend in the precipitation, air temperature, shortwave radiation, net radiation and sensible heat flux over the previous 37 years, with a negative trend detected for the wind speed, soil heat flux and soil temperature.


1990 ◽  
Vol 36 (123) ◽  
pp. 217-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger J. Braithwaite ◽  
Ole B. Olesen

AbstractDaily ice ablation on two outlet glaciers from the Greenland ice sheet, Nordbogletscher (1979–83) and Qamanârssûp sermia (1980–86), is related to air temperature by a linear regression equation. Analysis of this ablation-temperature equation with the help of a simple energy-balance model shows that sensible-heat flux has the greatest temperature response and accounts for about one-half of the temperature response of ablation. Net radiation accounts for about one-quarter of the temperature response of ablation, and latent-heat flux and errors account for the remainder. The temperature response of sensible-heat flux at QQamanârssûp sermia is greater than at Nordbogletscher mainly due to higher average wind speeds. The association of high winds with high temperatures during Föhn events further increases sensible-heat flux. The energy-balance model shows that ablation from a snow surface is only about half that from an ice surface at the same air temperature.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (16) ◽  
pp. 3217-3228 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. Shin ◽  
S. Cocke ◽  
T. E. LaRow ◽  
James J. O’Brien

Abstract The current Florida State University (FSU) climate model is upgraded by coupling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Land Model Version 2 (CLM2) as its land component in order to make a better simulation of surface air temperature and precipitation on the seasonal time scale, which is important for crop model application. Climatological and seasonal simulations with the FSU climate model coupled to the CLM2 (hereafter FSUCLM) are compared to those of the control (the FSU model with the original simple land surface treatment). The current version of the FSU model is known to have a cold bias in the temperature field and a wet bias in precipitation. The implementation of FSUCLM has reduced or eliminated this bias due to reduced latent heat flux and increased sensible heat flux. The role of the land model in seasonal simulations is shown to be more important during summertime than wintertime. An additional experiment that assimilates atmospheric forcings produces improved land-model initial conditions, which in turn reduces the biases further. The impact of various deep convective parameterizations is examined as well to further assess model performance. The land scheme plays a more important role than the convective scheme in simulations of surface air temperature. However, each convective scheme shows its own advantage over different geophysical locations in precipitation simulations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (243) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIZU CHEN ◽  
XIANG QIN ◽  
SHICHANG KANG ◽  
WENTAO DU ◽  
WEIJUN SUN ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTWe analyzed a 2-year time series of meteorological data (January 2011–December 2012) from three automatic weather stations on Laohugou glacier No. 12, western Qilian Mountains, China. Air temperature, humidity and incoming radiation were significantly correlated between the three sites, while wind speed and direction were not. In this work, we focus on the effects of clouds on other meteorological parameters and on glacier melt. On an average, ~18% of top-of-atmosphere shortwave radiation was attenuated by the clear-sky atmosphere, and clouds attenuated a further 12%. Most of the time the monthly average increases in net longwave radiation caused by clouds were larger than decreases in net shortwave radiation but there was a tendency to lose energy during the daytime when melting was most intense. Air temperature and wind speed related to turbulent heat flux were found to suppress glacier melt during cloudy periods, while increased water vapor pressure during cloudy days could enhance glacier melt by reducing energy loss by latent heat. From these results, we have increased the physical understanding of the significance of cloud effects on continental glaciers.


1985 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 158-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Escher-Vetter

In this paper, some features of energy balance terms will be discussed in respect to the melting capacity available at the surface of Vernagtferner in the Oetztal Alps. The climatic pattern of summer 1982 is described, then the method of calculating individual terms (shortwave and longwave radiation balance, sensible and latent heat flux) from records of radiation, air temperature, humidity and wind. The results of these calculations are discussed for ice, firn and snow areas of the glacier. In particular the relationship between the four terms is shown for 15 July 1982, the day with highest meltwater production in 1982. These values are then compared with the maximum values of the individual terms, showing that the highest meltwater production is caused by the combination of quite high values of the individual terms, but not of the absolutely highest ones. The importance of sensible heat flux for meltwater production in 1982 is discussed: comparison between meltwater production for the whole summer and measured runoff shows reasonable accordance.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2865
Author(s):  
Puyu Wang ◽  
Zhongqin Li ◽  
Christoph Schneider ◽  
Hongliang Li ◽  
Alexandra Hamm ◽  
...  

In this study, energy and mass balance is quantified using an energy balance model to represent the glacier melt of Urumqi Glacier No. 1, Chinese Tian Shan. Based on data from an Automatic Weather Station (4025 m a.s.l) and the mass balance field survey data nearby on the East Branch of the glacier, the “COupled Snowpack and Ice surface energy and Mass balance model” (COSIMA) was used to derive energy and mass balance simulations during the ablation season of 2018. Results show that the modeled cumulative mass balance (−0.67 ± 0.03 m w.e.) agrees well with the in-situ measurements (−0.64 ± 0.16 m w.e.) (r2 = 0.96) with the relative difference within 5% during the study period. The correlation coefficient between modeled and observed surface temperatures is 0.88 for daily means. The main source of melt energy at the glacier surface is net shortwave radiation (84%) and sensible heat flux (16%). The energy expenditures are from net longwave radiation (55%), heat flux for snow/ice melting (32%), latent heat flux of sublimation and evaporation (7%), and subsurface heat flux (6%). The sensitivity testing of mass balance shows that mass balance is more sensitive to temperature increase and precipitation decrease than temperature decrease and precipitation increase.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 1849-1861
Author(s):  
Vidhi Bharti ◽  
Eric Schulz ◽  
Christopher W. Fairall ◽  
Byron W. Blomquist ◽  
Yi Huang ◽  
...  

Given the large uncertainties in surface heat fluxes over the Southern Ocean, an assessment of fluxes obtained by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim) product, the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) routine observations, and the Objectively Analyzed Air–Sea Heat Fluxes (OAFlux) project hybrid dataset is performed. The surface fluxes are calculated using the COARE 3.5 bulk algorithm with in situ data obtained from the NOAA Physical Sciences Division flux system during the Clouds, Aerosols, Precipitation, Radiation, and Atmospheric Composition over the Southern Ocean (CAPRICORN) experiment on board the R/V Investigator during a voyage (March–April 2016) in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean (43°–53°S). ERA-Interim and OAFlux data are further compared with the Southern Ocean Flux Station (SOFS) air–sea flux moored surface float deployed for a year (March 2015–April 2016) at ~46.7°S, 142°E. The results indicate that ERA-Interim (3 hourly at 0.25°) and OAFlux (daily at 1°) estimate sensible heat flux H s accurately to within ±5 W m−2 and latent heat flux H l to within ±10 W m−2. ERA-Interim gives a positive bias in H s at low latitudes (<47°S) and in H l at high latitudes (>47°S), and OAFlux displays consistently positive bias in H l at all latitudes. No systematic bias with respect to wind or rain conditions was observed. Although some differences in the bulk flux algorithms are noted, these biases can be largely attributed to the uncertainties in the observations used to derive the flux products.


1990 ◽  
Vol 36 (123) ◽  
pp. 217-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger J. Braithwaite ◽  
Ole B. Olesen

AbstractDaily ice ablation on two outlet glaciers from the Greenland ice sheet, Nordbogletscher (1979–83) and Qamanârssûp sermia (1980–86), is related to air temperature by a linear regression equation. Analysis of this ablation-temperature equation with the help of a simple energy-balance model shows that sensible-heat flux has the greatest temperature response and accounts for about one-half of the temperature response of ablation. Net radiation accounts for about one-quarter of the temperature response of ablation, and latent-heat flux and errors account for the remainder. The temperature response of sensible-heat flux at QQamanârssûp sermia is greater than at Nordbogletscher mainly due to higher average wind speeds. The association of high winds with high temperatures during Föhn events further increases sensible-heat flux. The energy-balance model shows that ablation from a snow surface is only about half that from an ice surface at the same air temperature.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document