On the role of thermal expansion and compression in large-scale atmospheric energy and mass transports
Advanced Search
Select up to three search categories and corresponding keywords using the fields to the right. Refer to the Help section for more detailed instructions.

Search our Collections & Repository

All these words:

For very narrow results

This exact word or phrase:

When looking for a specific result

Any of these words:

Best used for discovery & interchangable words

None of these words:

Recommended to be used in conjunction with other fields

Language:

Dates

Publication Date Range:

to

Document Data

Title:

Document Type:

Library

Collection:

Series:

People

Author:

Help
Clear All

Query Builder

Query box

Help
Clear All

For additional assistance using the Custom Query please check out our Help Page

i

On the role of thermal expansion and compression in large-scale atmospheric energy and mass transports

Filetype[PDF-14.41 MB]


Select the Download button to view the document
This document is over 5mb in size and cannot be previewed
Details You May Also Like

Details:

  • Journal Title:
    Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
  • Personal Author:
  • NOAA Program & Office:
    CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
  • Description:
    There are currently two views of how atmospheric total energy transport is accomplished. The traditional view considers total energy as a quantity that is transported in an advective-like manner by the wind. The other considers that thermal expansion and the resultant compression of the surrounding air causes a transport of total energy in a wave-like manner at the speed of sound. This latter view emerged as the result of detailed analysis of fully compressible mesoscale model simulations that demonstrated considerable transfer of internal and gravitational potential energy at the speed of sound by Lamb waves. In this study, results are presented of idealized experiments with a fully compressible model designed to examine the large-scale transfers of total energy and mass when local heat sources are prescribed. For simplicity a Cartesian grid was used, there was a horizontally homogeneous and motionless initial state, and the simulations did not include moisture.

    Three main experimental designs were employed. The first has a convective-storm-scale heat source and does not include the Coriolis force. The second experiment has a continent-scale heat source prescribed near the surface to represent surface heating and includes a constant Coriolis parameter. The third experiment has a cloud-cluster-scale heat source prescribed at the equator and includes a latitude-dependent Coriolis parameter. Results show considerable amounts of meridional total energy and mass transfer at the speed of sound. This suggests that the current theory of large-scale total energy transport is incomplete. It is noteworthy that comparison of simulations with and without thermally generated compression waves show that for a very large-scale heat source there are fairly small but nevertheless significant differences of the wind field.

    These results raise important questions related to the mass constraints when calculating meridional energy transports, the use of semi-implicit time differencing in large-scale global models, and the use of the term “heat transfer” for total energy transfer.

  • Keywords:
  • Source:
    Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 15975–16003, 2018
  • DOI:
  • Document Type:
    Journal Article
  • Rights Information:
    CC BY
  • Compliance:
    Submitted
  • Main Document Checksum:
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:

Supporting Files

  • No Additional Files

More +

You May Also Like

Checkout today's featured content at repository.library.noaa.gov

Version 3.26