scholarly journals Some aspects of Indian northeast monsoon as derived from TOVS data

MAUSAM ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-732
Author(s):  
R. SURESH ◽  
Y. E. A. RAJ

The Tiros Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) is a popular satellite sounding system. In this paper certain features of Indian northeast monsoon have been studied with the help of three years of TOVS data received through the satellite ground station located at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai. The TOVS based latitudinal and longitudinal profiles of Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) and Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) were derived for various phases of northeast monsoon activity, over coastal and interior Tamilnadu and oceanic regions. These were consistent with the known spatial rainfall characteristics of northeast monsoon. The average vertical temperature profiles derived for the various phases of northeast monsoon for the different regions revealed that the lowest layer and upper troposphere are warmer and mid troposphere colder during active northeast monsoon compared to dry phase. The diurnal variation of OLR and PWV and the comparability of TOVS derived data with conventional upper air data and INSAT data have been briefly discussed.

MAUSAM ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-360
Author(s):  
S. BALACHANDRAN ◽  
B. GEETHA

Water vapour represents a key variable in the atmospheric processes. The importance of assessing water vapour availability in the atmosphere is indicated by the currently prevalent use of vast number of observing systems, both of in-situ and remote sensing types, designed to measure its distribution accurately over wide ranges of space and time scales. One of the widely used techniques world over is use of ground based GPS receivers for measurement of total precipitable water vapour in the atmosphere over the station. One such system is being operated at Chennai since 2007.  An analysis of hourly Integrated Precipitable Water Vapour (IWV) data received from this system during Northeast Monsoon (NEM) season of 2008 shows the signatures of NEM activity and the passage of tropical disturbances like cyclonic storms and depressions in the vicinity of the GPS observation site. The GPS based IWV values are found to agree fairly well with radiosonde based IWV values and a good correlation exists between them. The IWV values obtained from GPS based system are found to be consistent with activity of Northeast monsoon with increase (decrease) of IWV during active (weak) phase of NEM 2008. The general expected trend of increase in IWV with approach of tropical systems in the vicinity of GPS station, reaching maximum during closest approach and again its decrease with increase of distance from the station is noticed. The diurnal variation of GPS based IWV estimates during NEM 2008 does not appear to be significant.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1768 (1) ◽  
pp. 012013
Author(s):  
F Z Ali ◽  
S N M Rahim ◽  
M H Jusoh

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 596 (7872) ◽  
pp. 353-356
Author(s):  
Licai Deng ◽  
Fan Yang ◽  
Xiaodian Chen ◽  
Fei He ◽  
Qili Liu ◽  
...  

AbstractOn Earth’s surface, there are only a handful of high-quality astronomical sites that meet the requirements for very large next-generation facilities. In the context of scientific opportunities in time-domain astronomy, a good site on the Tibetan Plateau will bridge the longitudinal gap between the known best sites1,2 (all in the Western Hemisphere). The Tibetan Plateau is the highest plateau on Earth, with an average elevation of over 4,000 metres, and thus potentially provides very good opportunities for astronomy and particle astrophysics3–5. Here we report the results of three years of monitoring of testing an area at a local summit on Saishiteng Mountain near Lenghu Town in Qinghai Province. The altitudes of the potential locations are between 4,200 and 4,500 metres. An area of over 100,000 square kilometres surrounding Lenghu Town has a lower altitude of below 3,000 metres, with an extremely arid climate and unusually clear local sky (day and night)6. Of the nights at the site, 70 per cent have clear, photometric conditions, with a median seeing of 0.75 arcseconds. The median night temperature variation is only 2.4 degrees Celsius, indicating very stable local surface air. The precipitable water vapour is lower than 2 millimetres for 55 per cent of the night.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 2139-2152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Delia García ◽  
Africa Barreto ◽  
Emilio Cuevas ◽  
Julian Gröbner ◽  
Omaira Elena García ◽  
...  

Abstract. A 7-year (2010–2016) comparison study between measured and simulated longwave downward radiation (LDR) under cloud-free conditions was performed at the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory (IZO, Spain). This analysis encompasses a total of 2062 cases distributed approximately evenly between day and night. Results show an excellent agreement between Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) measurements and simulations with libRadtran V2.0.1 and MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission model (MODTRAN) V6 radiative transfer models (RTMs). Mean bias (simulated − measured) of  <  1.1 % and root mean square of the bias (RMS) of  <  1 % are within the instrumental error (2 %). These results highlight the good agreement between the two RTMs, proving to be useful tools for the quality control of LDR observations and for detecting temporal drifts in field instruments. The standard deviations of the residuals, associated with the RTM input parameters uncertainties are rather small, 0.47 and 0.49 % for libRadtran and MODTRAN, respectively, at daytime, and 0.49 to 0.51 % at night-time. For precipitable water vapor (PWV)  >  10 mm, the observed night-time difference between models and measurements is +5 W m−2 indicating a scale change of the World Infrared Standard Group of Pyrgeometers (WISG), which serves as reference for atmospheric longwave radiation measurements. Preliminary results suggest a possible impact of dust aerosol on infrared radiation during daytime that might not be correctly parametrized by the models, resulting in a slight underestimation of the modeled LDR, of about −3 W m−2, for relatively high aerosol optical depth (AOD  >  0.20).


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 6435-6459 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. D. Gordon ◽  
J. R. Norris

Abstract. Clouds play an important role in the climate system by reducing the amount of shortwave radiation reaching the surface and the amount of longwave radiation escaping to space. Accurate simulation of clouds in computer models remains elusive, however, pointing to a lack of understanding of the connection between large-scale dynamics and cloud properties. This study uses a k-means clustering algorithm to group 21 years of satellite cloud data over midlatitude oceans into seven clusters, and demonstrates that the cloud clusters are associated with distinct large-scale dynamical conditions. Three clusters correspond to low-level cloud regimes with different cloud fraction and cumuliform or stratiform characteristics, but all occur under large-scale descent and a relatively dry free troposphere. Three clusters correspond to vertically extensive cloud regimes with tops in the middle or upper troposphere, and they differ according to the strength of large-scale ascent and enhancement of tropospheric temperature and humidity. The final cluster is associated with a lower troposphere that is dry and an upper troposphere that is moist and experiencing weak ascent and horizontal moist advection. Since the present balance of reflection of shortwave and absorption of longwave radiation by clouds could change as the atmosphere warms from increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gases, we must also better understand how increasing temperature modifies cloud and radiative properties. We therefore undertake an observational analysis of how midlatitude oceanic clouds change with temperature when dynamical processes are held constant (i.e., partial derivative with respect to temperature). For each of the seven cloud regimes, we examine the difference in cloud and radiative properties between warm and cold subsets. To avoid misinterpreting a cloud response to large-scale dynamical forcing as a cloud response to temperature, we require horizontal and vertical temperature advection in the warm and cold subsets to have near-median values in three layers of the troposphere. Across all of the seven clusters, we find that cloud fraction is smaller and cloud optical thickness is mostly larger for the warm subset. Cloud-top pressure is higher for the three low-level cloud regimes and lower for the cirrus regime. The net upwelling radiation flux at the top of the atmosphere is larger for the warm subset in every cluster except cirrus, and larger when averaged over all clusters. This implies that the direct response of midlatitude oceanic clouds to increasing temperature acts as a negative feedback on the climate system. Note that the cloud response to atmospheric dynamical changes produced by global warming, which we do not consider in this study, may differ, and the total cloud feedback may be positive.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 3861-3895 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Benevides ◽  
J. Catalao ◽  
P. M. A. Miranda

Abstract. The temporal behaviour of Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) retrieved from GPS delay data is analysed in a number of case studies of intense precipitation in the Lisbon area, in the period 2010–2012, and in a continuous annual cycle of 2012 observations. Such behaviour is found to correlate positively with the probability of precipitation, especially in cases of severe rainfall. The evolution of the GPS PWV in a few stations is analysed by a least-squares fitting of a broken line tendency, made by a temporal sequence of ascents and descents over the data. It is found that most severe rainfall event occurs in descending trends after a long ascending period, and that the most intense events occur after steep ascents in PWV. A simple algorithm, forecasting rain in the 6 h after a steep ascent of the GPS PWV in a single station is found to produce reasonable forecasts of the occurrence of precipitation in the nearby region, without significant misses in what concerns larger rain events, but with a substantial amount of false alarms. It is suggested that this method could be improved by the analysis of 2-D or 3-D time varying GPS PWV fields, or by its joint use with other meteorological data relevant to nowcast precipitation.


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