Research Summaries

Back Collaborative Research: Stable Boundary Layer Processes and Their Interaction with Nocturnal Convection Over the Great Plains in PECAN

Fiscal Year 2014
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Meteorology
Investigator(s) Wang, Qing
Sponsor National Science Foundation (NSF)
Summary This collaborative proposal is associated with the Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) campaign to be conducted across the Great Plains from 1 June to 15 July 2015. PECAN aims to advance the understanding of continental nocturnal warm-season precipitation with a focus on conditions with a nocturnal low-level jet (NLLJ) and stable boundary layer (NSBL). A unique aspect of the experimental design is the integration of a wide variety of profiling systems into a fixed and mobile PECAN Integrated Sounding Array (PISA) deployed across northern Oklahoma, central Kansas, and south-central Nebraska. This proposal represents measurements and the subsequent analyses at two of the fixed PISA sites (FP3 and FP4). Given PECAN's four research foci, it is clear that quantification of the NSBL structure is mission critical. Our proposed research is unique due to its focus on the NSBL using a suite of in situ measurements, a valuable addition to PECAN's remote sensing capabilities, especially in data validation and calibration. Our instrument package include tethered balloon based mean and flux systems, flux towers, SODARs, a 915 MHz wind profiler, a LIDAR, a laser ceilometer, a rawinsonde system, and three near-surface flux/profiling systems. Given the spatial separation of our two sites, we are ideally positioned to make coordinated and detailed measurements of the characteristics of the NSBL in different locations relative to the moving MCSs and their associated NSBL disturbances (density currents and bores). Our proposed analyses will also include flux measurements at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) Southern Great Plains sites to gain more spatial representation over the larger PECAN domain.
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Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal