Coexistence of Atmospheric Gravity Waves and Boundary Layer Rolls Observed by SAR

AbstractBoth atmospheric gravity waves (AGW) and marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) rolls are simultaneously observed on an Environmental Satellite (Envisat) advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) image acquired along the China coast on 22 May 2005. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image covers about 400 km × 400 km of a coastal area of the Yellow Sea. The sea surface imprints of AGW show the patterns of both a transverse wave along the coastal plain and a diverging wave in the lee of Mount Laoshan (1133-m peak), which indicate that terrain forcing affects the formation of AGW. The AGW have a wavelength of 8–10 km and extend about 100 km offshore. Model simulation shows that these waves have an amplitude over 3 km. Finer-scale (~2 km) brushlike roughness features perpendicular to the coast are also observed, and they are interpreted as MABL rolls. The FFT analysis shows that the roll wavelengths vary spatially. The two-way interactive, triply nested grid (9–3–1 km) Weather Research and Forecasti...

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