Thomas H. Vonder Haar

On the Observed Annual Cycle in the Ocean-Atmosphere Heat Balance Over the Northern Hemisphere

Abstract Based on the best presently available satellite radiation, atmospheric and oceanic data sets the long-term mean heat balance of the earth and its normal seasonal variation are investigated over the Northern Hemisphere. Quantitative estimates for the various flux and storage terms in the atmospheric and terrestrial branches of the heat balance are given for 10° wide latitude belts and for each calendar month. The results are presented in both graphical and tabular form. As was known before, the storage of heat in the oceans is found to dominate the energy storage in the combined atmosphere-ocean-land-cryosphere system. In the tropics, large changes in oceanic heat storage are found in the 10°N–20°N belt with a maximum in spring and a minimum in late summer. The main new finding of this study is that the inferred oceanic heat transports appear to undergo very large seasonal variations especially in the tropics. Between 10°N and 20°N, maximum northward oceanic transports of 4 to 5 × 1015 W were comp...

A physical retrieval of cloud liquid water over the global oceans using special sensor microwave/imager (SSM/I) observations

A method of remotely sensing integrated cloud liquid water over the oceans using spaceborne passive measurements from the special sensor microwave/imager (SSM/I) is described. The technique is comprised of a simple physical model that uses the 19.35- and 37-GHz channels of the SSM/I. The most comprehensive validation to date of cloud liquid water estimated from satellites is presented. This is accomplished through a comparison to independent ground-based microwave radiometer measurements of liquid water on San Nicolas Island, over the North Sea, and on Kwajalein and Saipan Islands in the western Pacific. In areas of marine stratocumulus clouds off the coast of California a further comparison is made to liquid water inferred from advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) visible reflectance measurements. The results are also compared qualitatively with near-coincident satellite imagery and with other existing microwave methods in selected regions. These comparisons indicate that the liquid water amounts derived from the simple scheme are consistent with the ground-based measurements for nonprecipitating cloud systems in the subtropics and middle to high latitudes. The comparison in the tropics, however, was less conclusive. Nevertheless, the retrieval method appears to have general applicability over most areas of the global oceans. An observational measure of the minimum uncertainty in the retrievals is determined in a limited number of known cloud-free areas, where the liquid water amounts are found to have a low variability of 0.016 kg m−2. A simple sensitivity and error analysis suggests that the liquid water estimates have a theoretical relative error typically ranging from about 25% to near 40% depending on the atmospheric/surface conditions and on the amount of liquid water present in the cloud. For the global oceans as a whole the average cloud liquid water is determined to be about 0.08 kg m−2. The major conclusion of this paper is that reasonably accurate amounts of cloud liquid water can be retrieved from SSM/I observations for nonprecipitating cloud systems, particularly in areas of persistent stratocumulus clouds, with less accurate retrievals in tropical regions.

Measurements of the Earth's Radiation Budget from Satellites During a Five-Year Period. Part I: Extended Time and Space Means

Abstract This paper summarizes an extended time series of measurements of the earths radiation budget from the first and second generation United States meteorological satellites. Values of planetary albedo, infrared radiant emittance, and the resulting net radiation budget are now available for 39 months during the period 1962–66. These measurements show a mean global albedo of 30%, and net radiation balance within measurement accuracy. The discussion treats global and zonally averaged values for the “mean annual” case, for “mean seasons,” and includes a comparison of measurements during the same seasons in different years. The role of these radiation budget measurements in the total global energy balance is noted.

New Estimate of Annual Poleward Energy Transport by Northern Hemisphere Oceans

Abstract Recent measurements of the earths radiation budget from satellites, together with extensive atmospheric energy transport summaries based on rawinsonde data, allow a new estimate of the required poleward energy transport by Northern Hemisphere oceans for the mean annual case. In the region of maximum net northward energy transport (30–35N), the oceans transport 47% of the required energy (1.7×1022 cal year−1). At 20N, the peak ocean transport accounts for 74% at that latitude; for the region 0–70N the ocean contribution averages 40%.

The Annual Radiation Balance of the Earth-Atmosphere System During 1969–70 from Nimbus 3 Measurements

Abstract Measurements of reflected solar radiation and emitted thermal radiation taken with a radiometer on the meteorological satellite Nimbus 3 during 10 semi-monthly periods (April–15 August, 3–17 October, 1969; 21 January–3 February, 1970) provided for the first time high-resolution data on the earths annual global radiation budget. Results on the planetary albedo, the amount of absorbed solar radiation, the infrared radiation loss to space, and the radiation balance of the earth-atmosphere system are discussed at various scales: global, hemispherical, and zonal averages., as well as global and polar maps with a spatial resolution of about synoptic scale (102–103 km). The incoming solar radiation (taking the most recent value of the solar constant S0=1.95 cal cm−2 min−1) is balanced within the accuracy of the measurements and evaluation procedure by a global albedo of 28.4% and an infrared heat loss to space of 0.345 cal cm−2 min−1, which corresponds to a mean planetary effective radiation temperatur...

Mesoscale and Radar Observations of the Fort Collins Flash Flood of 28 July 1997

Abstract On the evening of 28 July 1997 the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, experienced a devastating flash flood that caused five fatalities and over 200 million dollars in damage. Maximum accumulations of rainfall in the western part of the city exceeded 10 in. in a 6-h period. This study presents a multiscale meteorological overview of the event utilizing a wide variety of instrument platforms and data including rain gauge, CSU—CHILL multiparameter radar, Next Generation Radar, National Lightning Detection Network, surface and Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System observations, satellite observations, and synoptic analyses. Many of the meteorological features associated with the Fort Collins flash flood typify those of similar events in the western United States. Prominent features in the Fort Collins case included the presence of a 500-hPa ridge axis over northeastern Colorado; a weak shortwave trough on the western side of the ridge; postfrontal easterly upslope flow at low levels; w...

A study of cloud classification with neural networks using spectral and textural features

The problem of cloud data classification from satellite imagery using neural networks is considered in this paper. Several image transformations such as singular value decomposition (SVD) and wavelet packet (WP) were used to extract the salient spectral and textural features attributed to satellite cloud data in both visible and infrared (IR) channels. In addition, the well-known gray-level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM) method and spectral features were examined for the sake of comparison. Two different neural-network paradigms namely probability neural network (PNN) and unsupervised Kohonen self-organized feature map (SOM) were examined and their performance were also benchmarked on the geostationary operational environmental satellite (GOES) 8 data. Additionally, a postprocessing scheme was developed which utilizes the contextual information in the satellite images to improve the final classification accuracy. Overall, the performance of the PNN when used in conjunction with these feature extraction and postprocessing schemes showed the potential of this neural-network-based cloud classification system.

Observed Microphysical Structure of Midlevel, Mixed-Phase Clouds

Abstract This paper analyzes airborne measurements of six midlevel clouds observed over the Great Plains of the United States in late 1999 and early 2000 during the fifth of the Complex Layered-Cloud Experiments (CLEX-5). Data show that these innocuous-looking clouds display complicated microphysical and thermodynamic structures. Five of the six cases exhibit mixed-phase conditions in temperatures ranging from near 0° to −31°C, at altitudes of 2400 to 7200 m MSL. Four of the cases consist of a single cloud layer, while the other two are multilayered systems. In the thin, mixed-phase, single-layered clouds that the authors observed, there is an increase of liquid water content with altitude, whereas the ice water content maximizes in the mid- to lower part of the clouds. This contrasts the two multilayered systems the authors observed, in which significant amounts of ice occur in the top as well as the bottom of the individual layers of each system. A lack of significant temperature inversions or wind shea...

Systematic Biases in the Microphysics and Thermodynamics of Numerical Models That Ignore Subgrid-Scale Variability

A grid box in a numerical model that ignores subgrid variability has biases in certain microphysical and thermodynamic quantities relative to the values that would be obtained if subgrid-scale variability were taken into account. The biases are important because they are systematic and hence have cumulative effects. Several types of biases are discussed in this paper. Namely, numerical models that employ convex autoconversion formulas underpredict (or, more precisely, never overpredict) autoconversion rates, and numerical models that use convex functions to diagnose specific liquid water content and temperature underpredict these latter quantities. One may call these biases the ‘‘grid box average autoconversion bias,’’ ‘‘grid box average liquid water content bias,’’ and ‘‘grid box average temperature bias,’’ respectively, because the biases arise when grid box average values are substituted into formulas valid at a point, not over an extended volume. The existence of these biases can be derived from Jensen’s inequality. To assess the magnitude of the biases, the authors analyze observations of boundary layer clouds. Often the biases are small, but the observations demonstrate that the biases can be large in important cases. In addition, the authors prove that the average liquid water content and temperature of an isolated, partly cloudy, constant-pressure volume of air cannot increase, even temporarily. The proof assumes that liquid water content can be written as a convex function of conserved variables with equal diffusivities. The temperature decrease is due to evaporative cooling as cloudy and clear air mix. More generally, the authors prove that if an isolated volume of fluid contains conserved scalars with equal diffusivities, then the average of any convex, twice-differentiable function of the conserved scalars cannot increase.

Tropical Cyclone Inner-Core Kinetic Energy Evolution

Abstract Tropical cyclone (TC) destructive potential is highly dependent on the distribution of the surface wind field. To gain a better understanding of wind structure evolution, TC 0–200-km wind fields from aircraft reconnaissance flight-level data are used to calculate the low-level area-integrated kinetic energy (KE). The integrated KE depends on both the maximum winds and wind structure. To isolate the structure evolution, the average relationship between KE and intensity is first determined. Then the deviations of the KE from the mean intensity relationship are calculated. These KE deviations reveal cases of significant structural change and, for convenience, are referred to as measurements of storm size [storms with greater (less) KE for their given intensity are considered large (small)]. It is established that TCs generally either intensify and do not grow or they weaken/maintain intensity and grow. Statistical testing is used to identify conditions that are significantly different for growing ve...