Identification

Title

Influence of the Valley Surroundings on Valley Wind Dynamics

Abstract

In a recent study, the authors investigated the mechanisms leading to the formation of diurnal along-valley winds in a valley formed by two isolated mountain ridges on a horizontal plain. The main focus was on the relation between the valley heat budget and the valley-plain pressure difference. The present work investigates the influence of the valley surroundings on the evolution of the valley winds. Three valley-plain configurations with identical valley volumes are studied: a periodic valley, an isolated valley on a plain (the former case), and an isolated valley entrenched in an elevated plateau. According to the valley volume argument (topographic amplification factor), these three cases should develop identical temperature perturbations and thus similar along-valley winds. However, substantial differences are found between the three cases, in particular a much stronger daytime up-valley wind and nighttime down-valley wind for the plateau configuration. The analysis demonstrates the importance of the exchange of along-valley momentum between the valley atmosphere and its surroundings and of the upper-level pressure gradient in explaining the differences among the cases. Furthermore, differences in the upper-level pressure gradient are shown to be related to the heat exchange of the air above the valley atmosphere with the surroundings, which is related to larger-scale cross-valley circulations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rv0pcs

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-02-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright 2012 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact