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Weather Research (weather + research)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Earth and Environmental Science75%

Selected Abstracts

Atmospheric tides over the Pyrenees: observational study and numerical simulation

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, Issue 650 2010
J. Díaz de Argandoña
Abstract Barometric tides around the Pyrenees mountain range are analyzed by means of synoptic surface-station data recorded during one year, surface data from the Pyrenees Experiment (PYREX) and the CRA/LA Very High Frequency (VHF) wind profiler installed in the north of the range. Tides are decomposed into their diurnal and semi-diurnal components. Diurnal tides show a strong non-migrating component and are very dependent on local conditions. Semi-diurnal tides are more homogeneous and present a north,south asymmetry, also noted in the Alps. This cross-range asymmetry could be related to some interference effect caused by the mountain range in the migrating semi-diurnal tide wave. The asymmetry of the diurnal component presents a very strong seasonal variation, probably related to local diabatic effects. A three-month long simulation has been carried out with the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) limited-area model to try to reproduce the tide structure. The validation of the results with wind-profiler data shows reasonable agreement with the observed diurnal tide and poorer results for the semi-diurnal component. At surface level, however, the model reproduces some of the features of the observed semi-diurnal tide, and especially the cross-range asymmetry. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [source]

Impact of environmental flows on the daytime urban boundary layer structures over the Baltimore metropolitan region

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE LETTERS, Issue 1 2010
Yi-Xuan Shou
Abstract The three-dimensional structures of the urban daytime boundary layer (UDBL) over Baltimore are examined using a coupled Weather Research and Forecast,Urban Canopy model. Results show the upward growth of the urban heat island (UHI) effects as the surface-based ,hot plumes' with pronounced rising motions and thermal gradients. The UDBL tends to exhibit different vertical structures and intensities, depending on the magnitude and direction of environmental flows with respect to urban morphometric distributions and its interaction with the circulations induced by differential land covers. They are determined by both the local UHI effects and the nonlocal advective processes. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [source]

Mechanisms for intensification and maintenance of numerically simulated dust devils

ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE LETTERS, Issue 1 2010
Hiroshi Ohno
Abstract A large eddy simulation (LES) of a well-developed convective boundary layer (CBL) under no mean wind condition was performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting model in order to investigate the mechanisms for the intensification and maintenance of dust devils. By examining intense vortices from high temporal-frequency outputs, it was found that most of the intense vortices are intensified through the merger of multiple vortices. Moreover, such a significantly intense vortex was maintained and more enhanced by additionally merging small-scale vortices and tilting horizontal vortices at boundaries of convective cells. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [source]

The LEAD Portal: a TeraGrid gateway and application service architecture

CONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 6 2007
Marcus Christie
Abstract The Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD) Portal is a science application portal designed to enable effective use of Grid resources in exploring mesoscale meteorological phenomena. The aim of the LEAD Portal is to provide a more productive interface for doing experimental work by the meteorological research community, as well as bringing weather research to a wider class of users, meaning pre-college students in grades 6,12 and undergraduate college students. In this paper, we give an overview of the LEAD project and the role that LEAD portal is playing in reaching its goals. We then describe the various technologies we are using to bring powerful and complex scientific tools to educational and research users. These technologies,a fine-grained capability based authorization framework, an application service factory toolkit, and a Web services-based workflow execution engine and supporting tools,enable our team to deploy these once inaccessible, stovepipe scientific codes onto a Grid where they can be collectively utilized. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]