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Study of the properties of air flow over orographic barrierMaruška Mole, 2017, doctoral dissertation
Abstract: Earth’s atmosphere is a complex system. All weather phenomena take place in its lowest layer, the troposphere, which is strongly influenced by human activities and the underlying surface orography. A good example of the influence the orography has on the behavior of air flows is the appearance of strong north-east downslope wind in Vipava valley, called Bora. Numerical models used to analyze flows in complex terrain need meteorological data both for setting the initial conditions and the verification of modeling results. Obtaining spatial distributions of meteorological observables can be challenging, especially in the case of strong winds, such as Bora, where traditional methods may be inadequate due to prohibitive wind speeds. In most cases, vertical properties of the atmosphere can be obtained using remote sensing techniques. Contrary to vertical profile measurements with traditional methods, remote sensing techniques do not require the measuring device to be placed within the flow and are therefore more appropriate for measurements in severe weather conditions such as strong winds.
The aim of this thesis is a detailed analysis of wind and tropospheric structure properties in and above the Vipava valley in a variety of typical atmospheric conditions, including strong wind events. It employs a combination of high resolution wind and lidar data in addition to standard meteorological measurements.
In Ajdovščina, there are four predominant wind directions, two of them directly connected to Bora. In the case of Bora, periodicity analysis of wind data from Ajdovščina yielded a range of possible wind gust periods between 1 and 7 minutes. The periods were not stable, with the periodogram less noisy for stable wind directions. Wavelike structures were found to be present in the troposphere in half of the investigated cases, regardless of the presence of Bora. In statically stable conditions, gravity waves propagated throughout
the planetary boundary layer (PBL). In the case of Bora, the PBL experienced oscillations with periods between 1 and 2 minutes. A shear layer was present above the PBL, causing Kelvin-Helmholtz waves at its boundaries with periods ranging from 3 to 6 minutes. In some cases, periodic structures were observed above the shear layer as well, which were found to have longer periods than those within the PBL.
Keywords: remote sensing, Vipava valley, wind properties, Bora, wind gusts, wind periodicity, tropospheric structures, Kelvin-Helmholtz waves
Published in RUNG: 18.09.2017; Views: 7416; Downloads: 208
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