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Williams, P. E.

Publications and source records attributed to Williams, P. E..

2 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2007

Solar Rossby Wave 'Hills' Identified As Supergranules

We explore the nature of 'hills' observed on the solar surface which had previously been attributed to Rossby waves. We investigate the sol ar hills phenomenon by analyzing the output from a synthetic model ba sed solely on the observed solar photospheric convection spectrum. We show that the characteristics of these hills can be explained by the corrugation of the surface produced by the radial flows of the conve ction. The hills in our simulations are dominated by supergranules, a well-known component of solar convection. Rossby waves have been predicted to exist within the Sun and may play an important role in the d ynamics of the solar interior, including the Sun's differential rotat ion and magnetic dynamo. Our study suggests, however, that the hills observed at the solar limb do not confirm the existence of solar Ross by waves.

Williams, P. E.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Supergranule Superrotation Identified as a Projection Effect

Previous measurements of the rotation rate of the supergranule Doppler velocity pattern revealed surprising characteristics: (1) the pattern rotates faster than the plasma at the surface and, at each latitude, it rotates faster than the plasma at any level below the surface (superrotation), (2) larger cells rotate more rapidly than smaller cells, and (3) faster rotation rates are found when using cross-correlation techniques with larger time-lags between Doppler images. We simulate the supergranulation velocity pattern using a spectrum for the cellular flows that matches the observed spectrum but we keep the pattern unchanged and rotating rigidly. Our simulation shows that the superrotation and its dependence upon cell size can be largely reproduced by projection effects on the line-of-sight Doppler velocity signal. The remaining variation in rotation rate with cell size can be attributed to cells smaller than supergranules extending through shallower layers which have slower rotation rates.

Hathaway, D. H.↗