scholarly journals Relation between the Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Impact Factors under Severe Surface Thermal Conditions

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinhuan Ao ◽  
Jiangang Li ◽  
Zhaoguo Li ◽  
Shihua Lyu ◽  
Cailian Jiang ◽  
...  

This paper reported a comprehensive analysis on the diurnal variation of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) in summer of Badain Jaran Desert and discussed deeply the effect of surface thermal to ABL, including the Difference in Surface-Air Temperature (DSAT), net radiation, and sensible heat, based on limited GPS radiosonde and surface observation data during two intense observation periods of experiments. The results showed that (1) affected by topography of the Tibetan Plateau, the climate provided favorable external conditions for the development of Convective Boundary Layer (CBL), (2) deep CBL showed a diurnal variation of three- to five-layer structure in clear days and five-layer ABL structure often occurred about sunset or sunrise, (3) the diurnal variation of DSAT influenced thickness of ABL through changes of turbulent heat flux, (4) integral value of sensible heat which rapidly converted by surface net radiation had a significant influence on the growth of CBL throughout daytime. The cumulative effect of thick RML dominated the role after CBL got through SBL in the development stage, especially in late summer, and (5) the development of CBL was promoted and accelerated by the variation of wind field and distribution of warm advection in high and low altitude.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 5253-5268
Author(s):  
Junhui Che ◽  
Ping Zhao

Abstract. The important roles of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) in climate, weather, and air quality have long been recognized, but little is known about the TP ABL climatological features and their west–east discrepancies due to the scarce data in the western TP. Based on observational datasets of intensive sounding, surface sensible heat flux, solar radiation, and soil moisture from the Third Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Scientific Experiment (TIPEX-III) and the routine meteorological-operational-sounding and ground-based cloud cover datasets in the Tibetan Plateau for the period 2013–2015, we investigate the west–east differences in summer ABL features over the TP and the associated influential factors for the first time. It is found that the heights of both the convective boundary layer (CBL) and the neutral boundary layer (NBL) exhibit a diurnal variation and a west–east difference in the TP, while these features are not remarkable for the stable boundary layer (SBL). Moreover, the ABL shows significant discrepancies in the amplitude of the diurnal variation and the persistent time of the development between the eastern and western TP. In the early morning (08:00 BJT, Beijing time), the ABL height distribution is narrow, with a mean height below 450 m a.g.l. (above ground level) and a small west–east difference. The SBL observed at this moment accounts for 85 % of the total TP ABL. There is a wide distribution in the ABL height up to 4000 m a.g.l. and a large west–east difference for the total ABL height at noon (14:00 BJT), with a mean height above 2000 m a.g.l. in the western TP and around 1500 m a.g.l. in the eastern TP. The CBL accounts for 77 % of the total TP ABL at this moment, with more than 50 % of the CBL above 1900 m a.g.l. In the late afternoon (20:00 BJT), the CBL and SBL dominate the western and eastern TP, respectively, which results in a larger west–east difference of 1054.2 m between the western and eastern TP. The high ABL height in a cold environment over the western TP (relative to the plain areas) is similar to that in some extreme hot and arid areas such as Dunhuang and Taklimakan deserts. In general, for the western (eastern) TP, there is low (high) total cloud coverage, with large (small) solar radiation at the surface and dry (wet) soil. These features lead to high (low) sensible heat flux and thus promote (inhibit) the local ABL development. This study provides new insights for west–east structures of the summer ABL height, occurrence frequency, and diurnal amplitude over the TP region and the associated reasons.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junhui Che ◽  
Ping Zhao

Abstract. Based on intensive sounding, surface sensible heat flux, solar radiation, and soil moisture observational datasets from the Third Tibetan Plateau Atmospheric Scientific Experiment and the routine meteorological operational sounding and total cloudiness datasets in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) for the period 2013–2015, we investigate the features of summer atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) over the TP and its major influential factors. It is found that the convective boundary layer (CBL) and the neutral boundary layer (NBL) show remarkable diurnal variations over the TP, while the stable boundary layer (SBL) diurnal variation is weak. In the early morning, the ABL height distribution is narrow, with a small west-east difference. The SBL accounts for 85 % of the TP ABL. At noon, there is a wide distribution in the ABL height up to 4000 m. The CBL accounts for 77 % of the TP ABL, with more than 50 % of the CBL height above 1900 m. The ABL height exhibits a large west-east difference, with a mean height above 2000 m in the western TP and around 1500 m in the eastern TP. In the late afternoon, the CBL and SBL dominate the western and eastern TP, respectively, resulting in a larger west-east difference of 1054.2 m between the western and eastern TP. The high ABL height in a cold environment over the western TP (relative to the plain areas) is similar to that in some extreme hot and arid areas such as Dunhuang and Taklimakan Deserts. For the western (eastern) TP, there is low (high) total cloud coverage, with large (small) solar radiation at the surface and dry (wet) soil. These features result in high (low) sensible heat flux and thus promotes (inhibits) the local ABL development.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 531-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Kumar Mehta ◽  
Madineni Venkat Ratnam ◽  
Sukumarapillai V. Sunilkumar ◽  
Daggumati Narayana Rao ◽  
Boddapaty V. Krishna Murthy

Abstract. The diurnal variation of atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) height is studied using high-resolution radiosonde observations available at 3 h intervals for 3 days continuously from 34 intensive campaigns conducted during the period December 2010–March 2014 over a tropical station Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E; 375 m), in the Indian monsoon region. The heights of the ABL during the different stages of its diurnal evolution, namely, the convective boundary layer (CBL), the stable boundary layer (SBL), and the residual layer (RL) are obtained to study the diurnal variabilities. A clear diurnal variation is observed in 9 campaigns out of the 34 campaigns. In 7 campaigns the SBL did not form in the entire day and in the remaining 18 campaigns the SBL formed intermittently. The SBL forms for 33–55 % of the time during nighttime and 9 and 25 % during the evening and morning hours, respectively. The mean SBL height is within 0.3 km above the surface which increases slightly just after midnight (02:00 IST) and remains almost constant until the morning. The mean CBL height is within 3.0 km above the surface, which generally increases from morning to evening. The mean RL height is within 2 km above the surface which generally decreases slowly as the night progresses. The diurnal variation of the ABL height over the Indian region is stronger during the pre-monsoon and weaker during winter season. The CBL is higher during the summer monsoon and lower during the winter season while the RL is higher during the winter season and lower during the summer season. During all the seasons, the ABL height peaks during the afternoon (∼ 14:00 IST) and remains elevated until evening (∼ 17:00 IST). The ABL suddenly collapses at 20:00 IST and increases slightly in the night. Interestingly, it is found that the low level clouds have an effect on the ABL height variability, but the deep convective clouds do not. The lifting condensation level (LCL) is generally found to occur below the ABL for the majority of the database and they are randomly related.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Collaud Coen ◽  
Elisabeth Andrews ◽  
Diego Aliaga ◽  
Marcos Andrade ◽  
Hristo Angelov ◽  
...  

Abstract. High altitude stations are often emphasized as free tropospheric measuring sites but they remain influenced by atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) air masses due to convective transport processes. The local and meso-scale topographical features around the station are involved in the convective boundary layer development and in the formation of thermally induced winds leading to ABL air lifting. The station altitude is not a sufficient parameter to characterize the ABL influence. Topography data from the global digital elevation model GTopo30 were used to calculate 5 parameters for 46 high altitude stations situated in five continents. The geometric mean of these 5 parameters determines a topography based index called ABL-TopoIndex which can be used to rank the high altitude stations as a function of the ABL influence. To construct the ABL-TopoIndex, we rely on the criteria that the ABL influence will be low if the station is one of the highest points in the mountainous massif, if there is a large altitude difference between the station and the valleys or plateaus, if the slopes around the station are steep, and finally if the drainage basin for air convection is small. All stations on volcanic islands exhibit a low ABL-TopoIndex whereas stations in the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau have high ABL-TopoIndex values. Spearman's rank correlation between aerosol optical properties and number concentration from 28 stations and the ABL-TopoIndex, the altitude and the latitude are used to validate this topographical approach. Statistically significant (s.s.) correlations are found between the 5 and 50 percentiles of all aerosol parameters and the ABL-TopoIndex whereas no s.s. correlation is found with the station altitude. The diurnal cycles of aerosol parameters seem to be best explained by the station latitude although a s.s. correlation is found between the amplitude of the diurnal cycles of the absorption coefficient and the ABL-TopoIndex. Finally, the main flow paths for air convection were calculated for various ABL heights.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5827-5839 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Chen ◽  
X. D. Xu ◽  
S. Yang ◽  
T. L. Zhao

Abstract. The Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) region has been recognized as a key region that plays a vital role in troposphere-to-stratosphere transport (TST), which can significant impact the budget of global atmospheric constituents and climate change. However, the details of transport from the boundary layer (BL) to tropopause layer (TL) over these regions, particularly from a climatological perspective, remain an issue of uncertainty. In this study, we present the climatological properties of BL-to-TL transport over the ASM region during boreal summer season (June-July-August) from 2001 to 2009. A comprehensive tracking analysis is conducted based on a large ensemble of TST-trajectories departing from the atmospheric BL and arriving at TL. Driven by the winds fields from NCEP/NCAR Global Forecast System, all the TST-trajectories are selected from the high resolution datasets generated by the Lagrangian particle transport model FLEXPART using a domain-filling technique. Three key atmospheric boundary layer sources for BL-to-TL transport are identified with their contributions: (i) 38% from the region between tropical Western Pacific region and South China Seas (WP) (ii) 21% from Bay of Bengal and South Asian subcontinent (BOB), and (iii) 12% from the Tibetan Plateau, which includes the South Slope of the Himalayas (TIB). Controlled by the different patterns of atmospheric circulation, the air masses originated from these three source regions are transported along the different tracks into the TL. The spatial distributions of three source regions keep similarly from year to year. The timescales of transport from BL to TL by the large-scale ascents r-range from 1 to 7 weeks contributing up to 60–70% of the overall TST, whereas the transport governed by the deep convection overshooting become faster on a timescales of 1–2 days with the contributions of 20–30%. These results provide clear policy implications for the control of very short lived substances, especially for the source regions over Indian subcontinent with increasing populations and developing industries.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. e56909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuelong Chen ◽  
Juan A. Añel ◽  
Zhongbo Su ◽  
Laura de la Torre ◽  
Hennie Kelder ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 953-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Mayfield ◽  
Gilberto J. Fochesatto

AbstractThe high-latitude winter atmospheric boundary layer of interior Alaska continually exhibits a complex layered structure as a result of extreme meteorological conditions. In this paper the occurrence of elevated inversions (EI), surface-based inversions (SBI), and stratified layers in the sub-Arctic from January 2000 to December 2009 is reported. This statistical analysis is based on radiosonde observation data from the Fairbanks National Weather Service station complemented by Winter Boundary Layer Experiment observations in the period 2010–11. This study found that SBIs occurred 64% of the time. An SBI occurred in combination with one, two, three, or four simultaneous EIs 84.86%, 48.49%, 21.23%, and 7.99% of the time, respectively, in 2326 total cases. The calculated mean SBI height was 377 m; EIs occurred at 1231, 2125, 2720, and 3125 m, respectively. This analysis was able to discriminate between locally controlled inversion layers and synoptic-dependent inversions and to identify their formation mechanisms. It was found that, in the presence of an SBI layer, the first EI layer formed 35.8% of the time under anticyclonic conditions at a mean height of 1249 m and 22% of the time in warm-air-advection situations at a mean height of 1049 m. The remaining 23.4% resulted from combined synoptic situations, and 18.8% were unclassified.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Gerken ◽  
Gabriel T. Bromley ◽  
Paul C. Stoy

Abstract Land management impacts atmospheric boundary layer processes, and recent trends reducing the practice of summer fallow have led to increases in precipitation and decreases in temperature in the Canadian Prairie provinces during summer. It is unclear if such trends also impact the hydrometeorology of the adjacent U.S. northern Great Plains, parts of which have seen similar changes in land management. Here, MERRA-2 reanalysis data, eddy covariance observations, and a mixed-layer (ML) atmospheric modeling framework are combined to demonstrate that the likelihood of convectively preconditioned conditions has increased by approximately 10% since the mid-1980s and is now more sensitive to further decreases in the Bowen ratio (Bo) and maximum daily net radiation in northeastern Montana. Convective season Bo in the study area has decreased from approximately 2 to 1 from the 1980s until the present, largely due to simultaneous increases in latent heat flux and decreases in sensible heat flux, consistent with observed decreases of summer fallow and increases in cropping. Daily net radiation has not changed despite a significant decrease in May and June humidity lapse rates from the 1980s to present. Future research should determine the area of the U.S. Great Plains that has seen changes in the dynamics of the atmospheric boundary layer height and lifted condensation level and their crossings as a necessary condition for convective precipitation to occur and ascertain if ongoing changes in land management will lead to future changes in convective outcomes.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Kumar Mehta ◽  
Madineni Venkat Ratnam ◽  
Sukumarapillai V. Sunilkumar ◽  
Daggumati Narayana Rao ◽  
Boddapati V. Krishna Murthy

Abstract. The diurnal variation of atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) height is studied using high resolutions radiosonde observations available every 3-h intervals for 3 days continuously from 34 intensive campaigns conducted during the period December 2010–March 2014 over a tropical station Gadanki (13.5° N, 79.2° E), in the Indian monsoon region. The heights of the ABL during the different stages of its diurnal evolution, namely, the convective boundary layer (CBL), the stable boundary layer (SBL), and the residual layer (RL) are obtained to study the diurnal variability. A clear diurnal variability in 9 campaigns is observed while in 7 campaigns the SBL does not form for the entire day and in the remaining 18 campaigns the SBL form intermittently. The SBL forms 33 %–55 % during nighttime and 9 % and 25 % during the evening and morning hours, respectively. The mean SBL height is within 0.3 km above the surface which increases slightly just after midnight (0200 IST) and remain almost steady till morning. The mean CBL height is within 3.0 km above the surface which generally increases from morning to evening. The mean RL height is within 2 km above the surface which generally decreases slowly as the night progresses. Diurnal variation of the ABL height over the Indian region is stronger during the pre-monsoon and weaker during winter season. The CBL is higher during the summer monsoon and lower during the winter season while the RL is higher during winter season and lower during summer season. During all the seasons, the ABL height peaks during the afternoon (~ 1400 IST) and remains elevated till evening (~ 1700 IST). The ABL suddenly collapses at 2000 IST due to cooling after the sunset and increases slightly over night. Interestingly, it is found that the low level clouds have an effect on the ABL height variability, but not the deep convective clouds.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document