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Abstract
Sea temperature anomalies which departed from the December climatic mean by approximately 2C off the coast of Newfoundland were inserted into the NCAR six-layer, 5° mesh, general circulation model of the atmosphere in order to test the model's response to small perturbations in sea surface temperature. The response of the model to the anomalies was analyzed with respect to pressure patterns, heat flux, and cyclone frequency, path and intensity. This response was compared with a statistical analysis of the response of the atmosphere to similar sea temperature anomalies based on approximately 80 years of observations as described by Ratcliffe and Murray.
Analyses of the anomaly experiments are preceded by an analysis of the basic (control) statistics for both model and atmosphere. The most pronounced discrepancies between the two were noted in cyclone statistics. A calculation with double horizontal resolution greatly improved the model features. Detailed comparison was complicated by the fact that the model failed to achieve statistical stationarity.
The extensive verification data of Ratcliffe and Murray proved valuable in distinguishing meaningful anomaly responses from those that could be attributed to the many limitations in the model, including a pronounced natural variability. Both warm and cold anomaly cases were tested. Best agreement with observed data was obtained for the case of the warm anomaly; this agreement was most evident during the middle portions of the integrations and then only in the North Atlantic sector. The response in the case with a cold anomaly was not as satisfactory although there were clear distinctions between the warm and cold anomaly cases.
Abstract
Sea temperature anomalies which departed from the December climatic mean by approximately 2C off the coast of Newfoundland were inserted into the NCAR six-layer, 5° mesh, general circulation model of the atmosphere in order to test the model's response to small perturbations in sea surface temperature. The response of the model to the anomalies was analyzed with respect to pressure patterns, heat flux, and cyclone frequency, path and intensity. This response was compared with a statistical analysis of the response of the atmosphere to similar sea temperature anomalies based on approximately 80 years of observations as described by Ratcliffe and Murray.
Analyses of the anomaly experiments are preceded by an analysis of the basic (control) statistics for both model and atmosphere. The most pronounced discrepancies between the two were noted in cyclone statistics. A calculation with double horizontal resolution greatly improved the model features. Detailed comparison was complicated by the fact that the model failed to achieve statistical stationarity.
The extensive verification data of Ratcliffe and Murray proved valuable in distinguishing meaningful anomaly responses from those that could be attributed to the many limitations in the model, including a pronounced natural variability. Both warm and cold anomaly cases were tested. Best agreement with observed data was obtained for the case of the warm anomaly; this agreement was most evident during the middle portions of the integrations and then only in the North Atlantic sector. The response in the case with a cold anomaly was not as satisfactory although there were clear distinctions between the warm and cold anomaly cases.
Abstract
On 18 September 1974, a cloud cluster growing in the GATE ship array was examined using aircraft flying close to one another at different heights, the geostationary satellite SMS-1, and radar, rawinsonde and ship data, with a view to elucidating mechanisms of convection. In this paper we concentrate analysis on cloudy convection in the moist layer.
In and above southerly surface monsoon flow approaching the cluster, clouds indigenous to the moist layer took the form of rows of tiny cumulus, and of arcs of cumulus mediocris, with patterns different from those of deeper clouds. From satellite visible images, arcs were traced for periods exceeding 2 h. Airborne photography showed that the arcs were composed of many small clouds. Radar data showed that they originated after precipitation. Apparently, throughout their life cycle, they perpetuated the pattern of an initiating dense downdraft. Eventually they yielded isolated cumulus congestus, again bearing precipitation. Aircraft recorded the distribution of thermodynamic quantities and winds at altitudes within the mixed layer, and at 537 and 1067 m. These data indicated that the arcs persisted as mesoscale circulations driven by release of latent heat in the clouds, rather than being driven by the original density current at the surface. The cloudy circulations were vigorous near and above cloud base, becoming weaker upward through altitude 1 km. The entire mesoscale circulation systems were of horizontal scale roughly 40 km.
The mesoscale cloud patterns of the moist layer appeared to play a primary role in heat transfer upward within this layer, and contributed to the forcing of showering midtropospheric clouds.
Abstract
On 18 September 1974, a cloud cluster growing in the GATE ship array was examined using aircraft flying close to one another at different heights, the geostationary satellite SMS-1, and radar, rawinsonde and ship data, with a view to elucidating mechanisms of convection. In this paper we concentrate analysis on cloudy convection in the moist layer.
In and above southerly surface monsoon flow approaching the cluster, clouds indigenous to the moist layer took the form of rows of tiny cumulus, and of arcs of cumulus mediocris, with patterns different from those of deeper clouds. From satellite visible images, arcs were traced for periods exceeding 2 h. Airborne photography showed that the arcs were composed of many small clouds. Radar data showed that they originated after precipitation. Apparently, throughout their life cycle, they perpetuated the pattern of an initiating dense downdraft. Eventually they yielded isolated cumulus congestus, again bearing precipitation. Aircraft recorded the distribution of thermodynamic quantities and winds at altitudes within the mixed layer, and at 537 and 1067 m. These data indicated that the arcs persisted as mesoscale circulations driven by release of latent heat in the clouds, rather than being driven by the original density current at the surface. The cloudy circulations were vigorous near and above cloud base, becoming weaker upward through altitude 1 km. The entire mesoscale circulation systems were of horizontal scale roughly 40 km.
The mesoscale cloud patterns of the moist layer appeared to play a primary role in heat transfer upward within this layer, and contributed to the forcing of showering midtropospheric clouds.
Abstract
Aircraft, radar, satellite and ship data, gathered on 18 September 1974 during GATE, have been brought to bear an clouds of the middle and upper troposphere associated with a cloud cluster occurring near the ridge axis of a 700 mb wave.
Clouds penetrating above 2.5 km into the middle troposphere were organized in bands about 9 km apart, aligned roughly along the direction of the wind shear in the cloud layer. Radar echoes corresponding to the cumulus congestus were of lifetime roughly 30 min, top height 6 km and peak rainfall rate 1.3 mm h−1. The number density of such echoes increased from one in 15 000 km2 to a value about three times greater, while convergence at ∼950 hPa (obtained from satellite cloud tracking) increased from about 1.5 to 3 × 10−5 s−1.
Convergence into a square box of side 150 km, circumnavigated by three aircraft in the moist layer, reached about 3.5 × 10−5 s−1 near cloud base. The upward flux of water vapor at cloud base was about 0.25 g m−2 s−1, equivalent to rain of intensity 0.9 mm h−1 with 100% conversion of the vapor. During this time mean rainfall rates over the area, and peaks averaged over 18 km2, increased from 0.2 to 0.7, and 23 to 39 mm h−1, respectively. Areas of small rainfall rate merged. High towers became taller and more numerous, but remained the same size, ∼50 km2 in area at altitude 7 km, for echo cores of intensity 29 dBZ.
A gust front at the ship Oceanographer was associated with one of the cloud bands., it was found that the band propagated discontinuously by new growth in its leading side. It featured a mesoscale pattern of updrafts in front and downdrafts behind, the downdrafts originating near altitude 2.5–3 km. A tentative conclusion is drawn that convective circulations tended to generate horizontal momentum near cloud base. The longitudinal rolls obtained theoretically by Sun (1978), for conditions of relatively strong buoyancy, match the observed bands well.
Cumulonimbus clouds reaching 15 km grew only out of an environment already moistened by lesser clouds. Cloud towers a few kilometers wide were photographed. Such towers were linked with groups of echoes identified from a high-resolution display of three-dimensional radar scans. This “wall chart” revealed that echoes were multicellular, and moved with widely differing velocities. It is deduced that individual echo groups yielded local winds of speed exceeding those in the environment. The lesser echo groups were part of a population having log-normally distributed properties. Those which yielded reflectivities as high as 46 dBZ were a different population; they were elongated norlh-northeast to south-southwest, a direction corresponding to that of a confluence asymptote at ∼950 hpa discerned from satellite data.
Abstract
Aircraft, radar, satellite and ship data, gathered on 18 September 1974 during GATE, have been brought to bear an clouds of the middle and upper troposphere associated with a cloud cluster occurring near the ridge axis of a 700 mb wave.
Clouds penetrating above 2.5 km into the middle troposphere were organized in bands about 9 km apart, aligned roughly along the direction of the wind shear in the cloud layer. Radar echoes corresponding to the cumulus congestus were of lifetime roughly 30 min, top height 6 km and peak rainfall rate 1.3 mm h−1. The number density of such echoes increased from one in 15 000 km2 to a value about three times greater, while convergence at ∼950 hPa (obtained from satellite cloud tracking) increased from about 1.5 to 3 × 10−5 s−1.
Convergence into a square box of side 150 km, circumnavigated by three aircraft in the moist layer, reached about 3.5 × 10−5 s−1 near cloud base. The upward flux of water vapor at cloud base was about 0.25 g m−2 s−1, equivalent to rain of intensity 0.9 mm h−1 with 100% conversion of the vapor. During this time mean rainfall rates over the area, and peaks averaged over 18 km2, increased from 0.2 to 0.7, and 23 to 39 mm h−1, respectively. Areas of small rainfall rate merged. High towers became taller and more numerous, but remained the same size, ∼50 km2 in area at altitude 7 km, for echo cores of intensity 29 dBZ.
A gust front at the ship Oceanographer was associated with one of the cloud bands., it was found that the band propagated discontinuously by new growth in its leading side. It featured a mesoscale pattern of updrafts in front and downdrafts behind, the downdrafts originating near altitude 2.5–3 km. A tentative conclusion is drawn that convective circulations tended to generate horizontal momentum near cloud base. The longitudinal rolls obtained theoretically by Sun (1978), for conditions of relatively strong buoyancy, match the observed bands well.
Cumulonimbus clouds reaching 15 km grew only out of an environment already moistened by lesser clouds. Cloud towers a few kilometers wide were photographed. Such towers were linked with groups of echoes identified from a high-resolution display of three-dimensional radar scans. This “wall chart” revealed that echoes were multicellular, and moved with widely differing velocities. It is deduced that individual echo groups yielded local winds of speed exceeding those in the environment. The lesser echo groups were part of a population having log-normally distributed properties. Those which yielded reflectivities as high as 46 dBZ were a different population; they were elongated norlh-northeast to south-southwest, a direction corresponding to that of a confluence asymptote at ∼950 hpa discerned from satellite data.
