Previous simulations of the Martian atmosphere have shown how topography acts to confine the low-level Hadley cell flow into intense jets on the eastern flanks of Tharsis and Syrtis Major. We now conduct detailed studies of these jets using the NASA Ames Mars general circulation model (MGCM). The structure of...
Boundary-layer data from several different geographical locations are analyzed to document the behavior of boundary-layer shear above the surface. The influence of diurnal variation of stability is emphasized. The applicability of the power law for use in shear estimates is examined.
This study examines the inadequacies of formulations for surface fluxes for use in numerical models of atmospheric flow. The difficulty is that numerical models imply spatial averaging over each grid area. Existing formulations am based on the relationship between local fluxes and local gradients and appear to describe the relationship...
Radiosonde data from the National Hail Research Experiment and the Wangara experiment are examined to study vertical gradients of moisture in heated boundary layers which are well-mixed in virtual potential temperature. The frequent occurrence of a significant decrease of moisture with height in the mixed layer over the high plains...
Lagrangian equations for momentum and buoyancy are developed for idealized turbulent fluid elements. The resulting formulation of transport can he viewed as a generalization of mixing length and parcel theories of mixing for application to gridded Eulerian models. This formulation of transport recognizes the mean gradients on the scale of...
The structure of turbulence in a strongly stratified nocturnal boundary layer is studied using fast-response aircraft data collected under clear sky conditions with weak ambient flow. The principal source of turbulence is shear generation near the top of the surface inversion layer. This shear is induced by the development of...
An analytical two-layer approximation of atmospheric flow is developed to study boundary-layer production of vertical motion. The model consists of a boundary layer topped by a free-flow layer. Both layers am time-dependent and possess different values of stratification. The boundary-layer equations are layer-integrated over a fixed depth and surface stress...
The influence of boundary layer pumping on an externally forced, synoptic-scale flow is examined. The results follow earlier theories of stratified incompressible Boussinesq flow theories in that the spin-down time scale and the penetration depth of the influence of boundary layer pumping are inversely proportional to the stratification and proportional...
It has been shown by Schlesinger and Mintz (1979) that the UCLA general
circulation model (GCM) is able to simulate the observed negative correlation
between the total amount of ozone in a vertical atmospheric column (the total ozone)
and the eastward-propagating synoptic disturbances in the troposphere, with the
total ozone...