Surface Heat Flux Variations across the Kuroshio Extension as Observed by Surface Flux Buoys

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (19) ◽  
pp. 5206-5221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masanori Konda ◽  
Hiroshi Ichikawa ◽  
Hiroyuki Tomita ◽  
Meghan F. Cronin

Abstract Wintertime sea surface heat flux variability across the Kuroshio Extension (KE) front is analyzed using data from the Kuroshio Extension Observatory (KEO) buoy in the Kuroshio recirculation gyre south of the KE front and from the Japan Agency for Marine–Earth Science and Technology KEO (JKEO) buoy in the north of the front. The coincident data used are from periods during two winters (2007 and 2008), when both buoys had a complete suite of meteorological data. In these two winter periods, the focus of this research is on three types of typical weather patterns referred to here as the northerly wind condition, the monsoon wind condition, and the normal condition. During the northerly wind condition, latent and sensible heat fluxes were large and often varied simultaneously at both sites, whereas during the monsoon wind condition the latent heat flux at the KEO site was significantly larger than that at the JKEO site. The difference between these heat flux patterns is attributed to the different airmass transformations that occur when prevailing winds blow across the KE front versus along the front. Reanalysis products appear to reproduce these heat flux spatial patterns at synoptic scales. It is suggested that the relative frequencies of these different types of weather conditions result in anomalous spatial patterns in the heat fluxes on monthly time scales.

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Fen Wang ◽  
Yaokun Li ◽  
Jianping Li

The surface air temperature (SAT) interannual variability during the spring-to-summer transition over South China (SC) has been decomposed into two dominant modes by applying empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. The first EOF mode (EOF1) is characterized by homogenous SAT anomalies over SC, whereas the second EOF mode (EOF2) features a dipole SAT anomaly pattern with opposite anomalies south and north of the Yangtze River. A regression analysis of surface heat flux and advection anomalies on the normalized principle component time series corresponding to EOF1 suggests that surface heat flux anomalies can explain SAT anomalies mainly by modulating cloud-shortwave radiation. Negative cloud anomalies result in positive downward shortwave radiation anomalies through the positive shortwave cloud radiation effect, which favor warm SAT anomalies over most of SC. For EOF2, the distribution of advection anomalies resembles the north–south dipole pattern of SAT anomalies. This suggests that wind-induced advection plays an important role in the SAT anomalies of EOF2. Negative SAT anomalies are favored by cold advection from northerly wind anomalies over land surfaces in high-latitude regions. Positive SAT anomalies are induced by warm advection from southerly wind anomalies over the ocean in low-latitude regions.


2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenju Cai ◽  
Tim Cowan ◽  
Stuart Godfrey ◽  
Susan Wijffels

Abstract Significant warming has occurred across many of the world’s oceans throughout the latter part of the twentieth-century. The increase in the oceanic heat content displays a considerable spatial difference, with a maximum in the 35°–50°S midlatitude band. The relative importance of wind and surface heat flux changes in driving the warming pattern is the subject of much debate. Using wind, oceanic temperature, and heat flux outputs from twentieth-century multimodel experiments, conducted for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the authors were able to reproduce the fast, deep warming in the midlatitude band; however, this warming is unable to be accounted for by local heat flux changes. The associated vertical structure and zonal distribution are consistent with a Sverdrup-type response to poleward-strengthening winds, with a poleward shift of the Southern Hemisphere (SH) supergyre and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. However, the shift is not adiabatic and involves a net oceanic heat content increase over the SH, which can only be forced by changes in the net surface heat flux. Counterintuitively, the heat required for the fast, deep warming is largely derived from the surface heat fluxes south of 50°S, where the surface flux into the ocean is far larger than that of the midlatitude band. The heat south of 50°S is advected northward by an enhanced northward Ekman transport induced by the poleward-strengthening winds and penetrates northward and downward along the outcropping isopycnals to a depth of over 1000 m. However, because none of the models resolve eddies and given that eddy fluxes could offset the increase in the northward Ekman transport, the heat source for the fast, deep warming in the midlatitude band could be rather different in the real world.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen F. Dacre ◽  
Simon A. Josey ◽  
Alan L. M. Grant

Abstract. The 2013/14 winter averaged sea surface temperature (SST) was anomalously cool in the mid-North Atlantic region. This season was also unusually stormy with extratropical cyclones passing over the mid-North Atlantic every 3 days. However, the processes by which cyclones contribute towards seasonal SST anomalies are not fully understood. In this paper a cyclone identification and tracking method is combined with ECMWF atmosphere and ocean reanalysis fields to calculate cyclone-relative net surface heat flux anomalies and resulting SST changes. Anomalously large negative heat fluxes are located behind the cyclones cold front resulting in anomalous cooling up to 0.2 K/day when the cyclones are at maximum intensity. This extratropical cyclone induced cold wake extends along the cyclones cold front but is small compared to climatological variability. To investigate the potential cumulative effect of the passage of multiple cyclone induced SST cooling in the same location we calculate Earth-relative net surface heat flux anomalies and resulting SST changes for the 2013/2014 winter period. Anomalously large winter averaged negative heat fluxes occur in a zonally orientated band extending across the North Atlantic between 40–60° N. The anomaly associated with cyclones is estimated using a cyclone masking technique which encompasses each cyclone centre and its trailing cold front. North Atlantic extratropical cyclones in the 2013/14 winter season account for 78 % of the observed net surface heat flux in the mid- North Atlantic and net surface heat fluxes in the 2013/14 winter season account for 70 % of the observed cooling in the mid-North Atlantic. Thus extratropical cyclones play a major role in determining the extreme 2013/2014 winter season SST cooling.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 715-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Lu ◽  
Jianzhi Dong ◽  
Susan C. Steele-Dunne

Abstract The spatial heterogeneity and temporal variation of soil moisture and surface heat fluxes are key to many geophysical and environmental studies. It has been demonstrated that they can be mapped by assimilating soil thermal and wetness information into surface energy balance models. The aim of this work is to determine whether enhancing the spatial resolution or temporal sampling frequency of soil moisture data could improve soil moisture or surface heat flux estimates. Two experiments are conducted in an area mainly covered by grassland, and land surface temperature (LST) observations from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) mission are assimilated together with either an enhanced L-band passive soil moisture product (9 km, 2–3 days) from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission or a merged product (36 km, quasi-daily) from the SMAP and the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. The results suggest that the availability of soil moisture observations is increased by 41% after merging data from the SMAP and the SMOS missions. A comparison with results from a previous study that assimilated a coarser SMAP soil moisture product (36 km, 2–3 days) suggests that enhancing the temporal sampling frequency of soil moisture observations leads to improved soil moisture estimates at both the surface and root zone, and the largest improvement is seen in the bias metric (0.008 and 0.007 m3 m−3 on average at the surface and root zone, respectively). Enhancing the spatial resolution, however, does not significantly improve soil moisture estimates, particularly at the surface. Surface heat flux estimates from assimilating soil moisture data of different spatial or temporal resolutions are very similar.


1989 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 798-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. C. Shewen ◽  
K. G. T. Hollands ◽  
G. D. Raithby

Calorimetric methods for measuring surface heat flux use Joulean heating to keep the surface isothermal. This limits them to measuring the heat flux of surfaces that are hotter than their surroundings. Presented in this paper is a method whereby reversible Peltier effect heat transfer is used to maintain this isothermality, making it suitable for surfaces that are either hotter or colder than the surroundings. The paper outlines the theory for the method and describes physical models that have been constructed, calibrated, and tested. The tested physical models were found capable of measuring heat fluxes with an absolute accuracy of 1 percent over a wide range of temperature (5–50°C) and heat flux (15–500 W/m2), while maintaining isothermality to within 0.03 K. A drawback of the method is that it appears to be suited only for measuring the heat flux from thick metallic plates.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Shan ◽  
Zhao Jing ◽  
Bolan Gan ◽  
Lixin Wu ◽  
Ping Chang ◽  
...  

2013 ◽  
Vol 135 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakesh Kumar ◽  
Niranjan Sahoo

Coaxial thermocouple sensors are suitable for measuring highly transient surface heat fluxes because the response times of these sensors are very small (∼0.1 ms). These robust sensors have the flexibility of mounting them directly on the surface of any geometry. So, they have been routinely used in ground-based impulse facilities as temperature sensors where rapid changes in heat loads are expected on aerodynamic models. Subsequently, the surface heat fluxes are predicted from the transient temperatures by appropriate one-dimensional heat conduction modeling for semi-infinite body. In this backdrop, the purpose of this work is to design and fabricate K-type coaxial thermocouples in-house and calibrate them under similar nature of heat loads by using simple laboratory instruments. Here, two methods of dynamic calibration of coaxial thermocouples have been discussed, where the known step loads are applied through radiation and conduction modes of heat transfer. Using appropriate one dimensional heat conduction modeling, the surface heat fluxes are predicted from the measured temperature histories and subsequently compared with the input heat loads. The recovery of surface heat flux from laser based calibration experiment under-predicts by 4% from its true input heat load. Similarly, recovery of surface heat flux from the conduction mode calibration experiments under-predicts 6% from its true input value. Further, finite-element based numerical study is performed on the coaxial thermocouple model to obtain surface temperatures with same heat loads as used in the experiments. The recovery of surface temperatures from finite element simulation is achieved within an accuracy of ±0.3% from the experiment.


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