Sean P. Lawrence

On the Earth's surface energy exchange determination from ERS satellite ATSR data. Part I : Long-wave radiation

This is the first in a series of papers which addresses the determination of the Earths surface energy exchange using data from the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR). This paper focuses on long-wave radiation from sea and land surfaces and a technique is proposed for the derivation of land surface temperature (LST) and land surface emissivity retrieval using ATSR data in a new simultaneous split-window method. Two points regarding net long-wave radiation are also considered. Firstly, over land and sea, differences in several previously published are discussed. Secondly, over sea, the effect on the net longwave radiation of using sea surface skin temperatures, which can be derived accurately from satellite thermal band data, as input to the empirical formulae is compared to the use of bulk water temperature taken from in situ measurements. Finally, a new formula is developed for the calculation of net long-wave radiation at the surface. The equivalent sky temperature, T, is used and the results agree...

A three-dimensional general circulation model of the surface layers of Lake Baikal

A three-dimensional general circulation model has been developed to investigate mixing processes in Lake Baikal, Siberia. Emphasis is placed on the 4–5-month period when the lake is completely ice-covered, a time of particular importance to the re-population of the lake by diatoms. The model represents the top 250 m and includes a new mixing scheme developed specifically for the investigation of under-ice flows. The effects of spatial patterns of snow and ice transparency on circulation and temperature are investigated. In general, temperature profiles provide an indication of the extent and depth of mixing and are highly sensitive to the presence of snow and to the transparency of ice. Generated profiles agree well with in situ measurements, which are difficult to obtain during this period. The model is shown to be particularly successful in simulating mixing processes in Lake Baikal. The surface heat fluxes that are required for a model of this type were estimated using satellite data, which provide complete coverage of the lake within one image. An increase in albedo values of 20% has no significant impact on the development of the temperature profile. Finally, density driven currents generated in the model were investigated. The magnitudes of the model currents compared to observations suggest that the background flow under ice in the lake may be density driven.

Effects of subsurface ocean dynamics on instability waves in the tropical Pacific

Tropical instability waves in a primitive equation model of the tropical Pacific Ocean, forced with analyzed wind stresses updated daily, show unexpectedly close phase correspondence with observation through the latter half of 1992. This suggests that these waves are not pure instabilities developing from infinitesimal disturbances, but that their phases and phase speeds are at least partially determined by the wind stress forcing. To quantify and explain this observation, we perfomed several numerical experiments, which indicate that remotely forced Rossby waves can influence both the phase and phase speed of tropical instability waves. We suggest that a remote wind forcing determines the high model/observation phase correspondence of tropical instability waves through a relatively realistic simulation of equatorial Kelvin and Rossby wave activity.

Heat flux exchange estimation by using ATSR SST data in TOGA area

The study of phenomena such as ENSO requires consideration of the dynamics and thermodynamics of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. The dynamic and thermal properties of the atmosphere and ocean are directly affected by air-sea transfers of fluxes of momentum, heat and moisture. In this paper, we present results of turbulent heat fluxes calculated by using two years (1992 and 1993) monthly average TOGA data and ATSR SST data in TOGA area. A comparison with published results indicates good qualitative agreement. Also, we compared the results of heat flux exchange by using ATSR SST data and by using the TOGA bucket SST data. The ATSR SST data set has been shown to be useful in helping to estimate the large space scale heat flux exchange.

Sensitive study of the climatological SST by using ATSR global SST data sets

Climatological sea surface temperature (SST) is an initial step for global climate processing monitoring. A comparison has been made by using Oberhubers SST data set and two years monthly averaged SST from ATSR thermal band data to force the OGCM. In the eastern Pacific Ocean, these make only a small difference to model SST. In the western Pacific Ocean, the use of Oberhubers data set gives higher climatological SST than that using ATSR data. The SSTs were also simulated for 1992 using climatological SSTs from two years monthly averaged ATSR data and Oberhuber data. The forcing with SST from ATSR data was found to give better SST simulation than that from Oberhubers data. Our study has confirmed that ATSR can provide accurate monthly averaged global SST for global climate processing monitoring.