Study of the Vertical Structure of the Coastal Boundary Layer Integrating Surface Measurements and Ground-Based Remote Sensing

Abstract

The understanding of the atmospheric processes in coastal areas requires the availability of quality datasets describing the vertical and horizontal spatial structure of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) on either side of the coastline. High-resolution Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models can provide this information and the main ingredients for good simulations are: an accurate description of the coastline and a correct subgrid process parametrization permitting coastline discontinuities to be caught. To provide an as comprehensive as possible dataset on Mediterranean coastal area, an intensive experimental campaign was realized at a near-shore Italian site, using optical and acoustic ground-based remote sensing and surface instruments, under different weather characteristic and stability conditions; the campaign is also fully simulated by a NWP model. Integrating information from instruments responding to different atmospheric properties allowed for an explanation of the development of various patterns in the vertical structure of the atmosphere. Wind LiDAR measurements provided information of the internal boundary layer from the value of maximum height reached by the wind profile; a height between 80 and 130 m is often detected as an interface between two different layers. The NWP model was able to simulate the vertical wind profiles and the eight of the ABL.

Multiparameter Detection of Summer Open Fire Emissions: The Case Study of GAW Regional Observatory of Lamezia Terme (Southern Italy)

“…The data characterized by lower values observed for this air-mass provenance are associated to a cyclonic event characterized by higher wind speed. When we consider the west and southwest (W-SW) sectors, two different situations generally occur: one related to the establishment of the breeze regime, with winds lower than 6 m/s and characterized by the transport of marine aerosol; the other related to synoptic conditions with winds stronger than 8 m/s characterized by the transport of Saharan-type aerosols or ash coming from the nearby volcanoes Etna (2 km as the crow flies from the observatory, 3357 m above ground level) and Stromboli (1 km as the crow flies from the observatory, 924 m above ground level) in front of the coastline [28]. The first occurrence was the most frequent at LMT during the summer season; therefore, the concentrations of eBC, CO and CO 2 in the W-SW sectors were lower than 0.8 µg/m 3 , 80 ppb and 410 ppm, respectively.…”

“…The sea breeze is well developed during daytime hours, when the wind flows from the west to the east, while the flow is reversed during the night-time period due to land breezes. The predominant synoptic circulation overlap with local breezes preserves a strong directionality from the west (Figure 1) [28,29].…”

Performance Evaluation of LIDAR and SODAR Wind Profilers on the Brazilian Equatorial Margin

“…Note that this methodology is usual for comparison between meteorological data estimation platforms and has been widely used in applications of remote sensing of air movement [2,[7][8][9]13,77,78].…”

Wind Speed Profile Statistics from Acoustic Soundings at a Black Sea Coastal Site

“…In summary, it can be noted that in the literature, there are many short-term studies dedicated to the coastal boundary layer using acoustic remote sounding in different places around the world for short periods [25][26][27][28][29][30][31] and they have proved the great capabilities of the sodar measurements for the study the wind structure of the PBL. The novelty and the contribution to science of this paper consist in the statistical analyzes of sodar long-term wind speed data, which brings new information for the vertical structure of the atmosphere in coastal regions, and particularly for the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.…”