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NASA NTRS2001

Interannual Variability, Global Teleconnection, and Potential Predictability Associated with the Asian Summer Monsoon

In this Chapter, aspects of global teleconnections associated with the interannual variability of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) are discussed. The basic differences in the basic dynamics of the South Asian Monsoon and the East Asian monsoon, and their implications on global linkages are discussed. Two teleconnection modes linking ASM variability to summertime precipitation over the continental North America were identified. These modes link regional circulation and precipitation anomalies over East Asia and continental North America, via coupled atmosphere-ocean variations over the North Pacific. The first mode has a large zonally symmetrical component and appears to be associated with subtropical jetstream variability and the second mode with Rossby wave dispersion. Both modes possess strong sea surface temperature (SST) expressions in the North Pacific. Results show that the two teleconnection modes may have its origin in intrinsic modes of sea surface temperature variability in the extratropical oceans, which are forced in part by atmospheric variability and in part by air-sea interaction. The potential predictability of the ASM associated with SST variability in different ocean basins is explored using a new canonical ensemble correlation prediction scheme. It is found that SST anomalies in tropical Pacific, i.e., El Nino, is the most dominant forcing for the ASM, especially over the maritime continent and eastern Australia. SST anomalies in the India Ocean may trump the influence from El Nino in western Australia and western maritime continent. Both El Nino, and North Pacific SSTs contribute to monsoon precipitation anomalies over Japan, southern Korea, northern and central China. By optimizing SST variability signals from the world ocean basins using CEC, the overall predictability of ASM can be substantially improved.

Lau, K. M.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Dust Aerosols at the Source Region During ACE-ASIA: A Surface/Satellite Perspective

ACE (Aerosol Characterization Experiment)-Asia is designed to study the compelling variability in spatial and temporal scale of both pollution-derived and naturally occurring aerosols, which often exist in high concentrations over eastern Asia and along the rim of the western Pacific. The phase-I of ACE-Asia was conducted from March-May 2001 in the vicinity of the Gobi desert, East Coast of China, Yellow Sea, Korea, and Japan, along the pathway of Kosa (severe events that blanket East Asia with yellow desert dust, peaked in the Spring season). Asian dust typically originates in desert areas far from polluted urban regions. During transport, dust layers can interact with anthropogenic sulfate and soot aerosols from heavily polluted urban areas. Added to the complex effects of clouds and natural marine aerosols, dust particles reaching the marine environment can have drastically different properties than those from the source. Thus, understanding the unique temporal and spatial variations of Asian dust is of special importance in regional-to-global climate issues such as radiative forcing, the hydrological cycle, and primary biological productivity in the mid-Pacific Ocean. During ACE-Asia we have measured continuously aerosol physical/optical/radiative properties, column precipitable water amount, and surface reflectivity over homogeneous areas from surface. The inclusion of flux measurements permits the determination of dust aerosol radiative flux in addition to measurements of loading and optical thickness. At the time of the Terra/MODIS, SeaWiFS, TOMS and other satellite overpasses, these ground-based observations can provide valuable data to compare with satellite retrievals over land. Preliminary results will be presented and discussed their implications in regional climatic effects.

Tsay, Si-Chee↗
NASA NTRS2001

Overview of ACE-Asia Spring 2001 Investigations on Aerosol Radiative Effects and Related Aerosol Properties

A primary, ACE-Asia objective was to quantify the interactions between aerosols and radiation in the Asia-Pacific region. Toward this end, radiometric and related aerosol measurements were made from ocean, land, air and space platforms. Models that predict aerosol fields guided the measurements and are helping integrate and interpret results. Companion overview's survey these measurement and modeling components. Here we illustrate how these components were combined to determine aerosol radiative. impacts and their relation to aerosol properties. Because clouds can obscure or change aerosol direct radiative effects, aircraft and ship sorties to measure these effects depended on predicting and finding cloud-free areas and times with interesting aerosols present. Pre-experiment satellite cloud climatologies, pre-flight aerosol and cloud forecasts, and in-flight guidance from satellite imagery all helped achieve this. Assessments of aerosol regional radiative impacts benefit from the spatiotemporal coverage of satellites, provided satellite-retrieved aerosol properties are accurate. Therefore, ACE-Asia included satellite retrieval tests, as part of many comparisons to judge the consistency (closure) among, diverse measurements. Early results include: (1) Solar spectrally resolved and broadband irradiances and optical depth measurements from the C-130 aircraft and at Kosan, Korea yielded aerosol radiative forcing efficiencies, permitting comparisons between efficiencies of ACE-Asia and INDOEX aerosols, and between dust and "pollution" aerosols. Detailed results will be presented in separate papers. (2) Based on measurements of wavelength dependent aerosol optical depth (AOD) and single scattering albedo the estimated 24-h a average aerosol radiative forcing efficiency at the surface for photosynthetically active radiation (400 - 700 nm) in Yulin, China is approx. 30 W sq m per AOD(500 nm). (3) The R/V Brown cruise from Honolulu to Sea of Japan sampled an aerosol optical depth gradient, with AOD(500 nm) extremes from 0.1 to 1.1. On the Pacific transit from Honolulu to Hachijo AOD(500 nm) averaged 0.2, including increases to 0.4 after several storms, suggesting the strong impact of wind-generated seasalt. The AOD maximum, found in the Sea of Japan, was influenced by dust and anthropogenic sources. (4) In Beijing, single scattering albedo retrieved from AERONET sun-sky radiometry yielded midvisible SSA=0.88 with strong wavelength dependence, suggesting a significant black carbon component. SSA retrieved during dust episodes was approx. 0.90 and variable but wavelength neutral reflecting the presence of urban haze with the dust. Downwind at Anmyon Island SSA was considerably higher, approx. 0.94, but wavelength neutral for dust episodes and spectrally dependent during non dust periods. (5) Satellite retrievals show major aerosol features moving from Asia over the Pacific; however, determining seasonal-average aerosol effects is hampered by sampling frequency and large-scale cloud systems that obscure key parts of aerosol patterns. Preliminary calculations using, satellite-retrieved AOD fields and initial ACE-Asia aerosol properties (including sulfates, soot, and dust) yield clear-sky aerosol radiative effects in the seasonal-average ACE-Asia plume exceeding those of manmade greenhouse gases. Quantifying all-sky direct aerosol radiative effects is complicated by the need to define the height of absorbing aerosols with respect to cloud decks.

Russell, Philip B.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Dust, Pollution, and Biomass Burning Aerosols in Asian Pacific: A Column Surface/Satellite Perspective

Many recent field experiments are designed to study the compelling variability in spatial and temporal scale of both pollution-derived and naturally occurring aerosols, which often exist in high concentrations over eastern/southeastern Asia and along the rim of the western Pacific. For example, the phase-I of ACE-Asia was conducted from March-May 2001 in the vicinity of the Gobi desert, East Coast of China, Yellow Sea, Korea, and Japan, along the pathway of Kosa (severe events that blanket East Asia with yellow desert dust, peaked in the Spring season). Asian dust typically originates in desert areas far from polluted urban regions. During transport, dust layers can interact with anthropogenic sulfate and soot aerosols from heavily polluted urban areas. Springtime is also the peak season for biomass burning in southeastern Asia. Added to the complex effects of clouds and natural marine aerosols, dust particles reaching the marine environment can have drastically different properties than those from the source. Thus, understanding the unique temporal and spatial variations of Asian aerosols is of special importance in regional-to-global climate issues such as radiative forcing, the hydrological cycle, and primary biological productivity in the mid-Pacific Ocean. During ACE-Asia we have measured continuously aerosol physical/optical/radiative properties, column precipitable water amount, and surface reflectivity over homogeneous areas from surface. The inclusion of flux measurements permits the determination of aerosol radiative flux in addition to measurements of loading and optical depth. At the time of the Terra/MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor), TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) and other satellite overpasses, these ground-based observations can provide valuable data to compare with satellite retrievals over land. A column satellite-surface perspective of Asian aerosols will be presented and will discuss their implications in regional-to-global effects on climate, fresh water redistribution, and health issues. (to be presented in Hawaii, April 28 - May 3, and Beijing, China, May 6 - 10, 2002)

Tsay, Si-Chee↗
NASA NTRS2002

Overview of ACE-Asia Spring 2001 Investigations On Aerosol-Radiation Interactions

ACE-Asia's extensive measurements from land, ocean, air and space quantified aerosol-radiation interactions. Results from each platform type, plus satellite-suborbital combinations, include: 1. Time series of multiwavelength aerosol optical depth (ADD), Angstrom exponent (alpha), single-scattering albedo (SSA), and size distribution from AERONET radiometry at 13 stations. In China and Korea AOD and alpha were strongly anticorrelated (reflecting transient dust events); dust volume-size modes peaked near 8 microns diameter; and SSA(dust) greater than SSA(pollution). 2. Calculations and measurements of photosynthetically active radiation and aerosols in China yield 24-h average downward surface radiative forcing per AOD(500 nm) of -27 W/sq m (400-700 nm). 3. The Hawaii-Japan cruise sampled a gradient with AOD(500 nm) extremes of 0.1 and 1.1. Shipboard measurements showed that adding dust to pollution increased SSA(550 nm, 55% RH), typically from -0.91 to approx. 0.97. Downwelling 8-12 micron radiances showed aerosol effects, especially in the major April dust event, with longwave forcing estimated at -5 to 15 W/sq m. 4. Extinction profiles from airborne sunphotometry and total-direct-diffuse radiometry show wavelength dependence often varying strongly with height, reflecting layering of dust-dominated over pollution-dominated aerosols. Comparing sunphotometric extinction profiles to those from in situ measurements (number and composition vs size, or scattering and absorption) shows layer heights agree, but extinction sometimes differs. 5. Airborne solar spectral flux radiometry yields absorption spectra for layers. Combining with AOD spectra yields best-fit aerosol single scattering albedo spectra. 6. Visible, NIR and total solar fluxes combined with AOD give radiative forcing efficiencies at surface and aloft.

Russell, P. B.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Summary of Cumulus Parameterization Workshop

A workshop on cumulus parameterization took place at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from December 3-5, 2001. The major objectives of this workshop were (1) to review the problem of representation of moist processes in large-scale models (mesoscale models, Numerical Weather Prediction models and Atmospheric General Circulation Models), (2) to review the state-of-the-art in cumulus parameterization schemes, and (3) to discuss the need for future research and applications. There were a total of 31 presentations and about 100 participants from the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and South Korea. The specific presentations and discussions during the workshop are summarized in this paper.

Tao, Wei-Kuo↗
NASA NTRS2002

Characterization of Dust Properties during ACE-Asia and PRIDE: A Column Satellite-Surface Perspective

Many recent field experiments are designed to study the compelling variability in spatial and temporal scale of both pollution-derived and naturally occurring aerosols, which often exist in high concentration over particular pathways around the globe. For example, the ACE-Asia (Aerosol Characterization Experiment-Asia) was conducted from March-May 2001 in the vicinity of the Taklimakan and Gobi deserts, East Coast of China, Yellow Sea, Korea, and Japan, along the pathway of Kosa (severe events that blanket East Asia with yellow desert dust, peaked in the Spring season). The PRIDE (Puerto RIco Dust Experiment, July 2000) was designed to measure the properties of Saharan dust transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean. Dust particles typically originate in desert areas far from polluted urban regions. During transport, dust layers can interact with anthropogenic sulfate and soot aerosols from heavily polluted urban areas. Added to the complex effects of clouds and natural marine aerosols, dust particles reaching the marine environment can have drastically different properties than those from the source. Thus, understanding the unique temporal and spatial variations of dust aerosols is of special importance in regional-to-global climate issues such as radiative forcing, the hydrological cycle, and primary biological productivity in the ocean. During ACE-Asia and PRIDE we had measured aerosol physical/optical/radiative properties, column precipitable water amount, and surface reflectivity over homogeneous areas from ground-based remote sensing. The inclusion of flux measurements permits the determination of aerosol radiative flux in addition to measurements of loading and optical depth. At the time of the Terra/MODIS, SeaWiFS, TOMS and other satellite overpasses, these ground-based observations can provide valuable data to compare with satellite retrievals over land. We will present the results and discuss their implications in regional climatic effects.

Lau, William K. M.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Tropospheric Ozone Over the North Pacific from Ozonesdonde Observations

As part of the TRACE-P mission, ozone vertical profile measurements were made at a number of locations in the North Pacific. At most of the sites there is also a multi-year record of ozonesonde observations. From seven locations in the western Pacific (Hong Kong; Taipei; Jeju Island, Korea; and Naha, Kagoshima, Tsukuba, and Sapporo, Japan), a site in the central Pacific (Hilo, HI), and a site on the west coast of the U.S. (Trinidad Head, CA) both a seasonal and event specific picture of tropospheric ozone over the North Pacific emerges. At all of the sites there is a pronounced spring maximum through the troposphere. There are, however, differences in the timing and strength of this feature. Over Japan the northward movement of the jet during the spring and summer influences the timing of the seasonal maximum. The ozone profiles suggest that transport of ozone rich air from the stratosphere plays a strong role in the development of this maximum. During March and April at Hong Kong ozone is enhanced in a layer that extends from the lower free troposphere into the upper troposphere that likely has its origin in biomass burning in northern Southeast Asia and equatorial Africa. During the winter the Pacific subtropical sites (latitude -25N) are dominated by air with a low-latitude, marine source that gives low ozone amounts particularly in the upper troposphere. In the summer in the boundary layer at all of the sites marine air dominates and ozone amounts are generally quite low (less than 25 ppb). The exception is near large population centers (Tokyo and Taipei but not Hong Kong) where pollution events can give amounts in excess of 80 ppb. During the TRACE-P intensive campaign period (February-April 2001) tropospheric ozone amounts were rather typical of those seen in the long-term records of the stations with multi-year soundings.

Oltmans, S. J.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Characterization of Dust Properties Near Source Region During ACE-Asia: A Column Satellite-Surface Perspective

Many recent field experiments are designed to study the compelling variability in spatial and temporal scale of both pollution-derived and naturally occurring aerosols, which often exist in high concentrations over eastern/southeastern Asia and along the rim of the western Pacific. For example, the ACE-Asia was conducted from March-May 2001 in the vicinity of the Taklimakan and Gobi deserts, East Coast of China, Yellow Sea, Korea, and Japan, along the pathway of Kosa (severe events that blanket East Asia with yellow desert dust, peaked in the Spring season). Asian dust typically originates in desert areas far from polluted urban regions. During transport, dust layers can interact with anthropogenic sulfate and soot aerosols from heavily polluted urban areas. Added to the complex effects of clouds and natural marine aerosols, dust particles reaching the marine environment can have drastically different properties than those from the source. Thus, understanding the unique temporal and spatial variations of Asian aerosols is of special importance in regional-to-global climate issues such as radiative forcing, the hydrological cycle, and primary biological productivity in the mid-Pacific Ocean. During ACE-Asia we have measured continuously aerosol physical/optical/radiative properties, column precipitable water amount, and surface reflectivity over homogeneous areas from surface. The inclusion of flux measurements permits the determination of aerosol radiative flux in addition to measurements of loading and optical depth. At the time of the Terra/MODIS, SeaWiFS, TOMS and other satellite overpasses, these ground-based observations can provide valuable data to compare with satellite retrievals over land. Preliminary results will be presented and discussed their implications in regional climatic effects.

Tsay, S. -C.↗
NASA NTRS2001

The Conference Proceedings of the 2001 Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) of the WCTR Society

The papers presented at this conference include: 1) The Global Airline Company: Agent of Market Power or Competition? 2) Airport Pavement Management; 3) Reservation System Providers and the Impact of Codeshare Arrangements on Screen Display; 4) Strategic Classification of Current Airline Alliances and Examination of Critical Factors Involving the Formations - an Explorative Perspective; 5) Airport Privatization Policy and Performance Measurement in Korea; 6) Pilot and Air Traffic Controller Relationships: The Role of Interdependence and Relative Influence; 7) Liberalization of Air Cargo Services: Background and an Economic Analysis; 8) The Implication of Hub and Spoke Network on the Airline Alliance Strategy.

Lee, Yeong-Heok↗
NASA NTRS2001

The Conference Proceedings of the 2001 Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) of the WCTR Society

The ATRS held its Annual conference at Jeju Island, Korea in July 2001. The conference was a success with nearly 140 participants including 70 presenters. This report contains presentations from Volume 1 on the following: Airline and Travel Agent Relationships in Asia;Benchmarking Aviation Safety in the Commercial Airline Industry;Impact of Frequent Flyer Program on the Demand for Air Travel; Application of Genetic Algorithm on Airline Schedule;The Effects of Dual Carrier Designation and Partial Liberalization: The Case of Canada;Defense of Air Carriers and Air Agencies in FAA Enforcement proceedin gs - Damage Control Before the Case Arises; Cost Incentives for Airline Mergers? - An examination on the cost impact of U.S. airline mergers and acquisitions;Airport Regulation, Airline Competition and Canada's Airport System; Airline Competition: The Case of Israel's Domestic Doupoly; Non-Financial Indicators of Airline Distress: A Conceptual Approach;and Airport Privatization: An Empirical Analysis of Financial and Operational Efficiency.

Lee, Yeong-Heok↗
NASA NTRS2003

Development and Operations of the Astrophysics Data System

The ADS was represented at the AAS meeting with 3 poster papers and a demonstration booth. We have setup a mirror site of the Vizier data base system at the CDS. functionality of the ADC at Goddard. This will replace the Preparations for the APS and LPSC meetings in March started. We will have demonstrations at both meetings. Preparations for the APS and LPSC meetings in March continued. We will have demonstrations at both meetings. The ADS was represented with a poster at the joint AGUEGU meeting in Nice, France. Discussions about the on-going collaboration between the ADS and the CDS in Strasbourg, France were held in Strasbourg. The ADS was invited to organize a session about the ADS and its mirror sites at the next United Nations Workshop on Basic Space Sciences in the Developing World. Efforts are under way to enter the tables of contents of all conference proceedings in the SA0 library into the ADS. This requires copying the tables of contents from all volumes in the library and have them typed in. This will greatly enhance the coverage of the literature in the ADS. We started the development of a search system for the full text of all scanned material in the ADS. This will eventually allow our users search capabilities that so far do not exist in any form. I order to enable the full text searching, we have purchased OCR software and are in the process of OCRing the scanned pages in the ADS. Efforts are in progress to handle the inclusion of data set identifiers in article manuscripts. The ADS will be the central system that will allow the journals to verify data set identifiers. The "master verifier" has been implemented in prototype form at the ADS. We started to include more journals in Geosciences/Geophysics in the ADS. The Royal astronomical Society has decided to archive their on-line journals in the ADS three years after publication. We have started to process these older on-line articles in order to archive them in the ADS. Our mirror site in Korea now has a full article mirror. We developed XML output capability in the ADS. This will make it easier to exchange data with other data systems. We started the development of new indexing software that will eventually reduce the indexing time for a database from days to hours or less. The ADS was represented at the IAU General Assembly with a poster. Discussions with the IAU management were held about extending the ADS IAU collaborations.

Murray, Stephen S.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Anticipated Improvements in Precipitation Physics and Understanding of Water Cycle from GPM Mission

The GPM mission is currently planned for start in the late-2007 to early-2008 time frame. Its main scientific goal is to help answer pressing scientific problems arising within the context of global and regional water cycles. These problems cut across a hierarchy of scales and include climate-water cycle interactions, techniques for improving weather and climate predictions, and better methods for combining observed precipitation with hydrometeorological prediction models for applications to hazardous flood-producing storms, seasonal flood/draught conditions, and fresh water resource assessments. The GPM mission will expand the scope of precipitation measurement through the use of a constellation of some 9 satellites, one of which will be an advanced TRMM-like core satellite carrying a dual-frequency Ku-Ka band precipitation radar and an advanced, multifrequency passive microwave radiometer with vertical-horizontal polarization discrimination. The other constellation members will include new dedicated satellites and co-existing operational/research satellites carrying similar (but not identical) passive microwave radiometers. The goal of the constellation is to achieve approximately 3-hour sampling at any spot on the globe -- continuously. The constellation s orbit architecture will consist of a mix of sun-synchronous and non-sun-synchronous satellites with the core satellite providing measurements of cloud-precipitation microphysical processes plus calibration-quality rainrate retrievals to be used with the other retrieval information to ensure bias-free constellation coverage. GPM is organized internationally, involving existing, pending, projected, and under-study partnerships which will link NASA and NOAA in the US, NASDA in Japan, ESA in Europe, ISRO in India, CNES in France, and possibly AS1 in Italy, KARI in South Korea, CSA in Canada, and AEB in Brazil. Additionally, the program is actively pursuing agreements with other international collaborators and domestic scientific agencies and institutions, as well as participation by individual scientists from academia, government, and the private sector to fulfill mission goals and to pave the way for what is expected to become an internationally-organized operational global precipitation observing system. Notably, the broad societal applications of GPM are reflected in the United Nation s identification of GPM as a foremost candidate for its Peaceful Uses of Space Program. An overview of the GPM mission design is given, followed by an explanation of its scientific agenda as an outgrowth of making improvements in rain retrieval accuracy, microphysics dexterity, sampling frequency, and global coverage. All of these improvements offer new means to observe variability in precipitation and water cycle fluxes and to achieve improved predictability of weather, climate, and hydrometeorology. Specifically, the scientific agenda of GPM has been designed to leverage the measurement improvements to improve prognostic model performance, particularly quantitative precipitation forecasting and its linked phenomena at short, intermediate, and extended time scales. The talk addresses how GPM measurements will enable better detection of accelerations and decelerations in regional and global water cycle processes and their relationship to climate variability, better impacts of precipitation data assimilation on numerical weather prediction and global climate reanalysis, and better performance from basin scale hydrometeorological models for short and long term flood-drought forecasting and seasonal fresh water resource assessment. These improvements become possible by using more accurate, more microphysically-centric, more frequent, and fully global precipitation observations to achieve better water budget closure and to provide more realistic forcing and assessment of prediction models.

Smith, Eric A.↗
NASA NTRS2003

13RC and and 3DRT Working Group of IRC: Status and Plans

We summarize recent activities of the International Intercomparison of 3D Radiation Codes (DRC), including development of an open source code, approximation methods for use in cloud dynamical models, and cloud reconstructions from multiple satellite platforms such as MODIS, MISR and ICESat. We also discuss the charter of the newly formed 3DRT Working Group of the International Radiation Commission, which hopes to coordinate and integrate efforts in various 3D application areas, including clouds, sea ice, and vegetation. Finally we describe plans for a special 3D session at the next International Radiation Symposium in Busan Korea, during 23-30 August 2004.

Cahalan, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2004

The NASA ADS: Searching, Linking and More

The NASA ADS Abstract Service is a NASA-funded project which provides FREE World Wide Web abstract search services. We currently have over 3.6 million references in four databases: 1) Astronomy and Planetary Sciences; 2) Physics and Geophysics; 3) Space Instrumentation; and 4) Astronomy Preprints. Our eleven mirror sites in France, Germany, Japan, Chile, Great Britain, India, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Korea and China help to provide better global access. Each database contains abstracts from hundreds of journals, publications, colloquia, symposia, proceedings, PhD Theses, and NASA reports. All abstracts can be searched by author, title, or abstract text words.

Thompson, D. M.↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Misnomer of East Asia Summer Monsoon

The terminology East Asian summer monsoon is used to refer to the heavy rainfall in southeast China including the Yangtze River Valley starting in May and ending in August (e.g., Chen and Chang 1980, Tao and Chen 1987, Ding 1992, Chang et al. 2000a.) This rainfall region is associated with the Mei-Yu front, which extends to Japan and its neighborhood and is called Baiu there. The Mei-Yu front becomes prominent in May and has a slow northward movement. From May to July the elongated rain belt moves from the southeast coast of China to the Yangtze River Valley. The rain belt extends north-east-ward to south of Japan in May and later covers Korea also. The purpose of this note is to point out that the terminology of East Asian summer monsoon is a misnomer to refer to the portion of this rainbelt residing over East Asia, in the sense that it is not a monsoon.

Chao, Winston C.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Comparisons and Contrasts Between Mediterranean Flood-Producing Orographic Storms and Tropical Cyclones Modified by Complex Orography

Often, late-year, flood-producing storms in the Mediterranean Alps region arise from baroclinic disturbances developing on westerly longwaves, with the incipient storm circulations appearing well west of the flood zone. Regardless of the genesis locations and before the storms begin their flow interactions with the orography of the Mediterranean Alps, a process which can produce intense long-lived rainfall over the mountainous terrain of Italy and France, most of their moisture is drawn from warm Mediterranean waters while important elements of their thermodynamic structure are derived from airmass properties originating in north Africa and the Mediterranean basin itself. In fact, because of strong thermodynamic contrasts between the baroclinic zone producing the incipient disturbance and high potential temperature air from the south advecting into and wrapping around the storm center, a Mediterranean storm whose origins are from an evolving shortwave baroclinic perturbation, can become a quasi-warm core hybrid in term of its energetics composition, a process somewhat akin to the development of polar lows. This process begs the question of whether there are similarities between the autumn-winter season flood producing storms of the Mediterranean Alps and warm core tropical cyclones which become altered dynamically and thermodynamically by landfall over steep orographic terrain. This study investigates, from a comparison and contrast perspective, how the similarities and differences between the two types of storms manifest themselves over their respective life cycles. Before the orographically-induced precipitation-release stage in which both types of storm have evolved to the same hydrometeorlogical conclusion, the two storm categories are transforming from entirely distinctive origins, i.e., the classic eastward traveling, baroclinic mid-latitude cyclone forming in western Europe, and the classic eastward-traveling, warm core tropical cyclone developing in the western Pacific. The analyses use high resolution, nonhydrostatic model simulations, satellite data, and various types of ground data to conduct the study. The flood events of Piemonte- 2000 in northern Italy and Typhoon Rusa-2002 in South Korea are selected to focus the analysis on well documented meteorological events.

Smith, Eric A.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Ground-based detectability of terrestrial and Jovian extrasolar planets: observations of CM Draconis at Lick Observatory

The detection of terrestrial-sized extrasolar planets from the ground has been thought to be virtually impossible due to atmospheric scintillation limits. However, we show that this is not the case especially selected (but nevertheless main sequence) stars, namely small eclipsing binaries. For the smallest of these systems, CM Draconis, several months to a few years of photometric observations with 1-m-class telescopes will be sufficient to detect the transits of any short-period planets of sizes > or = 1.5 Earth radii (RE), using cross-correlation analysis with moderately good photometry. Somewhat larger telescopes will be needed to extend this detectability to terrestrial planets in larger eclipsing binary systems. (We arbitrarily define "terrestrial planets" herein as those whose disc areas are closer to that of Earth's than Neptune's i.e., less than about 2.78 RE.) As a "spin-off" of such observations, we will also be able to detect the presence of Jovian-mass planets without transits using the timing of the eclipse minima. Eclipse minima will drift in time as the binary system is offset by a sufficiently massive planet (i.e., one Jupiter mass) about the binary/giant-planet barycenter, causing a periodic variation in the light travel time to the observer. We present here an outline of present observations taking place at the University of California Lick Observatory using the Crossley 0.9-m telescope in collaboration with other observatories (in South Korea, Crete, France, Canary Islands, and New York) to detect or constrain the existence of terrestrial planets around main sequence eclipsing binary star systems, starting with CM Draconis. We demonstrate the applicability of photometric data to the general detection of gas giant planets via eclipse minima timings in many other small-mass eclipsing binary systems as well.

NASA Program Exobiology↗