Cold Air Drainage Flows and their Relation to the Formation of Nocturnal Convective Clouds at the Eastern Andes of South Ecuador [Elektronische Ressource] / Katja Trachte. Betreuer: Jörg Bendix

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• Naturwissenschaften

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• Publié par: philipps-universitat_marburg
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 15
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Cold Air Drainage Flows and their
Relation to the Formation of Nocturnal
Convective Clouds at the Eastern Andes
of South Ecuador
kumulative Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Naturwissenschaften
(Dr. rer. nat.)
dem Fachbereich Geographie
der Philipps-Universität Marburg
vorgelegt von
Katja Trachte
aus Willingen - Schwalefeld
Marburg / Lahn 2010Vom Fachbereich Geographie
der Philipps-Universität Marburg als Dissertation
am 27. Oktober 2010 angenommen.
Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Jörg Bendix (Marburg)
Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Thomas Nauss (Bayreuth)
Drittgutachter: Prof. Dr. Thomas Foken (Bayreuth)
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 2. Februar 2011Preface
AttheendofachallengingtimeIwouldliketothankallthepersonswhosupported
and accompanied me on my way to realise this work. I have learned many things
during this time. I experienced what it means to work for a long period of time on
the same project with rapid progress and zero progress. Not at least because of all
the persons around me I persued that way to its final objective.
WithspecialgratitudeIhavetothankmysupervisorJörgBendixforhisextensive
counselandbacking. Heatalltimeshadopenearsandprovideanysupportneeded.
I thank him for his contagious enthusiasm for scientific issues and finding solutions
for unresolved questions.
SpecialthanksgotomycolleaguesattheLaboratoryforClimatologyandRemote
Sensing at Philipps-University of Marburg. During this time they supported me in
many situations ranging from little everyday problems to scientific discussions or
justcoffeebreaksinourkitchen. IthankThomasNaussformanyfruitfulexchanges
and discussions as well as for multiple help in everyday problems in scientific life. I
thank Rütger Rollenbeck for his support and the funny days in Ecuador. Further,
I thank Jan Cermak, who showed me more than once the fascination and challenge
of scientific work.
A fundamental contribution to this thesis came from the open source software
community, without this work could not have been conducted that way. I thank
the OpenSuse community and the GNU project for realisation of many parts of this
Awork, and the LT X within this thesis was typed.E
Theworkwasembeddedinasubproject(B3.1,BE1780/15-1,NA783/1-1)within
the research unit RU816 that was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG). This is greatfully acknowledged.
Finally, I thank my parents for their support during my education and my sister
Simone for her backing whenever needed.
Katja Trachte
Marburg, October 2010Contents
List of Figures III
List of Tables VII
List of Acronyms IX
List of Symbols XI
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Aims and Outlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2 Conceptual Design 11
2.1 Detecting and Analysing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Numerical Gridbox Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.1 Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Elaboration of Hypotheses to Working Packages . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.4 Technical Preparation of Working packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3 Impact of Terrain Configuration on Katabatic Flows 23
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Model Set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2.1 Topography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2.2 Initialisation and Boundary Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2.3 Physics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3.1 Development of Katabatic Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3.2 Impact of Topography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.5 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4 Katabatic Flows and the Formation of Convective Clouds 49
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.1 Frontogenesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.2 Model Set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
IContents
4.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.1 Density Current and Surface Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.2 Atmospheric Environmental Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.3.3 Formation of Convective Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.5 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5 Nocturnal Convective Clouds at the Eastern Andes of South Ecuador 75
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.3 Model Set-up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.4.1 Convective Cloud Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.4.2 Comparison of Observed and Simulated Cloud Patterns . . . . 86
5.4.3 Analyses of Atmospheric Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.4.4 Convective Cloud Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.4.5 Katabatic Flows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.6 Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
6 Summary and Outlook 107
6.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.2 Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Zusammenfassung 113
IIList of Figures
1.1 Outlineofthiswork. Boldnumbersontheleftarechapterandsection
numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1 Conceptual design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Workflow of the technical preparation for WP1 - WP5 . . . . . . . . 17
3.1 Schematic of an idealised katabatic flow (after Manins 1992) . . . . . 25
3.2 Study area (left), target area (right) with coverage of the local area
weather radar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.3 Simplified terrain models: a) simple uniform slope (SLP), b) simple
uniformvalley(VAL),c)simplevalleywithanadditionalalong-valley
height gradient (VAL2), d) basin (BSN), e) basin with a drainage
system (BSNV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.4 Vertical cross-section (xz-plots from x = 3.0 km, y = 15.0 km and x
= 17.0 km, y = 15.0 km) of the potential temperature (pt, contour,
−1K) and the wind field in u-w direction (vectors, ms ) of SLP for
time steps of (a) 3600 s and (b) 6900 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.5 Profiles of (a) the potential temperature (pt), (b) the wind vector (u)
and (c) the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) for time steps of 3600 s
and 6900 s taken at x = 12.5 km and y = 15.0 km . . . . . . . . . . . 33
−23.6 The heat energy fluxes in Wm with the net radiation (Rn), the
sensible heat flux (H), the latent heat flux (LE) and the ground heat
flux(G)asafunctionofsimulationtimebetween0and4hourstaken
at x = 12.5 km and y = 15.0 km . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.7 Horizontal cross-section (xy-plot at z = 50 m above ground level) of
the potential temperature (pt, shaded, K) and the wind field in u-v
−1direction (vectors, ms ) of BSN for time step 14,400 s . . . . . . . . 36
3.8 Horizontal cross-section (xy plot at z = 50 m above ground level) of
−1the divergence field (DIV, shaded, s amplified by a factor of 1000)
of BSN for time step 14,400 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.9 Horizontal cross-section (xy plot at z = 50 m above ground level) of
the pressure perturbation field (pprt, shaded, Pa) of BSN for time
step 14,400 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
IIIList of Figures
3.10 Horizontal cross-section (xy plot at z = 50 m above ground level) of
the potential temperature (pt, shaded, K) and the wind field in u-v
−1direction (vectors, ms ) of BSNV for time step 14,400 s . . . . . . . 39
3.11 Horizontal cross-section (xy plot at z = 50 m above ground level) of
−1the divergence field (DIV, shaded, s amplified by a factor of 1000)
of BSNV for time step 14,400 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.12 Horizontal cross-section (xy plot at z = 50 m above ground level) of
the pressure perturbation field (pprt, shaded, Pa) of BSNV for time
step 14,400 s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.13 Vertical cross-section (xz plot from x = 50.0 km, y = 50.0 km to x
−1= 79.0 km, y = 79.0 km) of the divergence field (DIV, shaded, s
amplified by a factor of 1000) and the wind field in u-w direction
−1(vectors, ms ) of BSNV for time step 14,400 s . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.1 Topographical map (GTOPO30 data