Search results for "Wind shear"

On the occurrence of strong vertical wind shear in the tropopause region: a 10-year ERA5 northern hemispheric study

2021

A climatology of the occurrence of strong wind shear in the upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS) is presented, which gives rise to defining a tropopause shear layer (TSL). Strong wind shear in the tropopause region is of interest because it can generate turbulence, which can lead to cross-tropopause mixing. The analysis is based on 10 years of daily northern hemispheric ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis data. The vertical extent of the region analyzed is limited to the altitudes from 1.5 km above the surface up to 25 km, to exclude the planetary boundary layer as well as strong wind shear in higher atmospheric layers like the mesosphere–lower thermosphere. A threshold value of St2=4×10-4s-2 of t…

2019

Abstract. The evolution of the tropopause inversion layer (TIL) during cyclogenesis in the North Atlantic storm track is investigated using operational meteorological analysis data (Integrated Forecast System from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). For this a total of 130 cyclones have been analysed during the months August through October between 2010 and 2014 over the North Atlantic. Their paths of migration along with associated flow features in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) have been tracked based on the mean sea level pressure field. Subsets of the 130 cyclones have been used for composite analysis using minimum sea level pressure to filter t…

The Role of Wind Speed and Wind Shear for Banner Cloud Formation

2019

Abstract Banner clouds are clouds that appear to be attached to the leeward face of a steep mountain. This paper investigates the role of wind speed and wind shear for the formation of banner clouds. Large-eddy simulations are performed to simulate the flow of dry air past an idealized pyramid-shaped mountain. The potential for cloud formation is diagnosed through the Lagrangian vertical parcel displacement, which in the case of a banner cloud shows a plume of large values in the lee of the mountain. In addition, vortical structures are visualized through streamlines and their curvature. A series of sensitivity experiments indicates that both the flow and the banner cloud occurrence are lar…

Effect of Unidirectional Vertical Wind Shear on Tropical Cyclone Intensity Change—Lower‐Layer Shear Versus Upper‐Layer Shear

2019

Further examination of the thermodynamic modification of the inflow layer of tropical cyclones by vertical wind shear

2013

Recent work has developed a new framework for the impact of vertical wind shear on the intensity evolution of tropical cyclones. A focus of this framework is on the frustration of the tropical cyclone's power machine by shear-induced, persistent downdrafts that flush relatively cool and dry (lower equivalent potential temperature, θ<sub>e</sub>) air into the storm's inflow layer. These previous results have been based on idealised numerical experiments for which we have deliberately chosen a simple set of physical parameterisations. Before efforts are undertaken to test the proposed framework with real atmospheric data, we assess here the robustness of our previous res…

Influence of variability and uncertainty of wind and waves on fatigue damage of a floating wind turbine drivetrain

2021

Abstract This study investigates the effect of variability and uncertainty of wind and wave conditions on the short-term fatigue damage of a 10-MW floating wind turbine drivetrain. Global dynamic responses of a semi-submersible wind turbine are calculated by aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulations in various environmental conditions. Then, rotor and generator loads, as well as nacelle motions from the global analysis are provided to a drivetrain model to investigate its dynamics. One-hour fatigue damage of the drivetrain bearings is calculated based on the bearing loads and speeds, and the effect of uncertainties related to wind and waves is assessed. The results indicate that the variations o…

Meso‐ β ‐scale environment for the stationary band complex of vertically sheared tropical cyclones

2016

Simple kinematic models for the environmental interaction of tropical cyclones in vertical wind shear

2011

A major impediment to the intensity forecast of tropical cyclones (TCs) is believed to be associated with the interaction of TCs with dry environmental air. However, the conditions under which pronounced TC-environment interaction takes place are not well understood. As a step towards improving our understanding of this problem, we analyze here the flow topology of a TC immersed in an environment of vertical wind shear in an idealized, three-dimensional, convection-permitting numerical experiment. A set of distinct streamlines, the so-called manifolds, can be identified under the assumptions of steady and layer-wise horizontal flow. The manifolds are shown to divide the flow around the TC i…

Daytime sensible heat flux estimation over heterogeneous surfaces using multitemporal land-surface temperature observations

2016

Equations based on surface renewal (SR) analysis to estimate the sensible heat flux (H) require as input the mean ramp amplitude and period observed in the ramp-like pattern of the air temperature measured at high frequency. A SR-based method to estimate sensible heat flux (HSR-LST) requiring only low-frequency measurements of the air temperature, horizontal mean wind speed, and land-surface temperature as input was derived and tested under unstable conditions over a heterogeneous canopy (olive grove). HSR-LST assumes that the mean ramp amplitude can be inferred from the difference between land-surface temperature and mean air temperature through a linear relationship and that the ramp freq…

Modeling Atmospheric Turbulence via Rapid Distortion Theory: Spectral Tensor of Velocity and Buoyancy

2017

Abstract A spectral tensor model is presented for turbulent fluctuations of wind velocity components and temperature, assuming uniform vertical gradients in mean temperature and mean wind speed. The model is built upon rapid distortion theory (RDT) following studies by Mann and by Hanazaki and Hunt, using the eddy lifetime parameterization of Mann to make the model stationary. The buoyant spectral tensor model is driven via five parameters: the viscous dissipation rate ε, length scale of energy-containing eddies L, a turbulence anisotropy parameter , gradient Richardson number (Ri) representing the local atmospheric stability, and the rate of destruction of temperature variance . Model outp…