A simple quasi-equilibrium analytical model is used to explore hypotheses related to observed spatial correlations between sea surface temperatures and wind stress on horizontal scales of 50–500 km. It is argued that a plausible contributor to the observed correlations is the approximate linear relationship between the surface wind stress and...
Bulk aerodynamic formulas are applied to meteorological data from low-altitude aircraft flights to observational estimates of the subgrid enhancement of momentum, sensible heat, and latent heat the atmospheric–oceanic boundary in light wind, fair weather conditions during TOGA COARE Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment). Here, subgrid enhancement the contributions of...
The authors reconsider the problem of estimating the sensible heat transfer at the earth's surface from direct measurements of turbulent fluxes in the atmospheric boundary layer. For simplicity, only horizontally homogeneous conditions are considered for a thin atmospheric layer containing no liquid water, adjacent to the earth's ground surface. Applying...
Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) wind and convection anomalies are locally amplified over the northeast Pacific warm pool during June–November. Composite analysis using NCEP reanalysis data indicates that perturbation available potential energy (PAPE) production through the positive correlation of intraseasonal temperature and convective diabatic heating anomalies supports the local intensification of MJO-related...
Intraseasonal precipitation variability over the northeast Pacific warm pool during June–October in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model 2.0.1 with a relaxed Arakawa–Schubert convection parameterization is found to be strongly sensitive to wind-induced variations in surface latent heat flux. A control simulation with interactive surface fluxes produces...
The enhancement of monthly averaged evaporation by atmospheric mesoscale systems is estimated from long-term hourly observations of surface meteorological data from the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) buoy moorings over the equatorial Pacific Ocean and a bulk aerodynamic flux algorithm developed as a result of the...
Tropical intraseasonal variability in the eastern North Pacific during June–September of 2000–03 is
analyzed using satellite and buoy observations. Quick Scatterometer ocean vector winds and the Tropical
Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation indicate that periods of anomalous surface westerly flow
over the east Pacific warm pool during a summertime intraseasonal...
Satellite measurements of surface wind stress from the QuikSCAT scatterometer and sea surface temperature (SST) from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager are analyzed for the three-month period 21 July–20 October 1999 to investigate ocean–atmosphere coupling in the eastern tropical Pacific. Oceanic tropical instability waves (TIWs) with periods of...
Boreal summer intraseasonal (30–90-day time scale) sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the east Pacific warm pool is examined using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) sea surface temperatures during 1998–2005. Intraseasonal SST variance maximizes at two locations in the warm pool: in the vicinity of 9°N, 92°W...
Measurements of near-surface winds by the NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) from October 1996 through June 1997 are analyzed to investigate the three major wind jets along the Pacific coast of Central America that blow over the Gulfs of Tehuantepec, Papagayo, and Panama. Each jet is easily identifiable as locally intense offshore...
The responses of surface wind and wind stress to spatial variations of sea surface temperature (SST) are investigated using satellite observations of the surface wind from the Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) and SST from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (EOS) (AMSR-E)...
The nature of the teleconnection linking ENSO variability with Atlantic basin tropical storm formation is investigated. Solutions of the linearized barotropic vorticity equation forced with August–October El Niño event divergence produce upper-tropospheric vorticity anomalies over the Sahel and at the mouth of the North African–Asian (NAA) jet over the tropical...
The surface wind stress response to sea surface temperature (SST) over the latitude range 30°–60°S in the Southern Ocean is described from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's QuikSCAT scatterometer observations of wind stress and Reynolds analyses of SST during the 2-yr period August 1999 to July 2001. While ocean–atmosphere...
The effects of surface wind speed and direction gradients on midlatitude surface vorticity and divergence fields associated with mesoscale sea surface temperature (SST) variability having spatial scales of 100–1000 km are investigated using vector wind observations from the SeaWinds scatterometer on the Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite and SST from the...
A physical and mathematical framework for the mutually consistent parameterization of the effects of cumulus convection on the large-scale momentum and vorticity fields is proposed. The key to achieving consistency is the understanding that the vorticity dynamics of the clouds below the spatial resolution of a large-scale dynamical model may...
Satellite estimates of winds at 10 m above the sea surface by the NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) during the 9-month period October 1996–June 1997 are analyzed to investigate the correlations between the three major wind jets along the Pacific coast of Central America and their relationships to the wind and pressure...
The atmospheric response to the oceanic forcing in the eastern Pacific along the northern equatorial sea surface temperature (SST) front is investigated in terms of sensible and latent heat flux during the 6-month period from 28 July 1999 to 27 January 2000 and the 7-month period from 28 June 2000...
This study evaluates the impacts of sea surface temperature (SST) specification and grid resolution on numerical simulations of air–sea coupling near oceanic fronts through analyses of surface winds from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model. The 9 May 2001 change of the boundary condition from the Reynolds...
The marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) response to sea surface temperature (SST) perturbations with wavelengths shorter than 30° longitude by 10° latitude along the Agulhas Return Current (ARC) is described from the first year of SST and cloud liquid water (CLW) measurements from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR) on...
The dynamical response of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) to mesoscale sea surface temperature (SST) perturbations is investigated over the Agulhas Return Current during winter from a 1-month, high-resolution, three-dimensional simulation using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model. A steady lower boundary condition for July 2002 is...