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Re: Winds and temperature



Interesting observations on katabatic winds, though insufficient
on its own to quell the misconception that because cold surface air
warms in descending, it will no longer be cold at lower elevations.
It is called elsewhere a gravity wind,
because the coldest air contributes to a downslope wind.
Here's an extreme example of katabatic winds - in the Antarctic
mountains - where skies are often clear.
Did you hear about sastrugis before?

<http://www.antarctica.org/UK/Envirn/pag/vents_cata_UK.htm>

Brian W

At 04:20 PM 2/16/2004, you wrote:
I saw striking confirmation of this a few years ago when helping our
environmental systems dept out with some student projects. We put some
temperature probes attached to datalogging boxes at gound level at
different heights on the slope of a large "dolina" (the hollow typical of
karst landscape) just above our town to record the temperature at 5 minute
intervals from afternoon to mid-morning, over a clear night in early
spring. The idea was to measure the temperature inversion.

As soon as the sun left the dolina the temperature began to plummet, and by
21:00 it was approaching minus 10 celsius, way below what we were
experiencing down the hill. As it turned out, it was a clear night, but at
about 23:00 the wind suddenly started up, and blew for the rest of the
night. Coinciding with the wind starting, the temperature on all the probes
shot up by more than 10 degrees within a few data points, staying there for
the rest of the night.

Mark

At 13:56 16/02/04 -0800, John Denker wrote:
>Quoting Gary Turner <turner@MORNINGSIDE.EDU>:
>
> > I hear frequently on weather reports comments along the lines of "little
> > wind tonight so expect temperatures to drop". I haven't managed to
> > convince myself of the reason for this,
>
>Various people have mentioned some correct parts of the answer;
>let me try to pull together something more complete.
>
>First of all, let me change the question slightly: If we
>have a CLEAR SKY and light winds, then we expect a big
>temperature drop ... specially in the mountains, the desert,
>or extra-especially the high desert.
>
>Factors include:
> -- dry air is transparent to thermal IR.
> -- water vapor (clouds or humid air) is pretty much
> a black body at thermal IR wavelengths.
> -- terrain (including rocks, soil, plants, puddles, etc.) is
> pretty much a black body.
> -- the terrain cools by radiation. Stefan-Boltzmann and all that.
> It's trying to come into equilibrium with the sky, which is at
> three kelvin!
> -- typical terrain (not including the ocean surface) has rather
> little heat conductivity, so the surface of the terrain cools
> quickly.
> -- the lowest levels of the air cool by conduction, by contact
> with the cold terrain.
> -- if you stir the air (e.g. due to wind) you would have to cool
> the entire air column, which has a considerable heat capacity.
> OTOH if you don't stir the air, only the lowest bits of air
> are subject to cooling, so they cool quicker and get colder.
> Most people (not including pilots) generally only care about
> the temperature of the lowest few feet of air.
> -- Once a cold layer forms, it will tend to stay there since it
> is an inversion. The normal profile of the air is to be
> warmer below and cooler above, right at the very edge of
> convective instability.
>
>Non-factors include:
> -- Sinking of cold air. There's usually not any supply of cold
>air available for sinking, and if it did sink, it would warm
>itself adiabatically anyway.

Mark Sylvester
UWCAd
Duino Trieste Italy


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!