gmajit
May 1, 2010, 11:26 PM
Transport is often regarded as a major component of atmospheric dynamics.
It is this transport which plays a very vital role in determining wind patterns as well as motion of large scale (synoptic) weather systems. Hence accurate characterisation of transport patterns is of utmost importance.Computation of air trajectories is a widely used form of tracing the dominant flow pattern over a desired region. These trajectories are computed on the basis of gridded meteorological data interpolated/ extrapolated as per computational requirements on different co-ordinates. A few commonly used ones are the isentropic (in which flow is considered on a constant adiabatic surface), isobaric (flow on a constant pressure surface) or the kinematic coordinates (vertical velocity of air parcels taken into account).However many a times it is being seen that usage of different coordinates give different trajectory patterns over the same region at the same time which is in fact erroneous. Given this the question that arises is whether one or more of these co-ordinate based models are actually suitable or not. Hence, how do we conclude that which of these models are to be used for trajectory simulations at a desired location at a given time?
It is this transport which plays a very vital role in determining wind patterns as well as motion of large scale (synoptic) weather systems. Hence accurate characterisation of transport patterns is of utmost importance.Computation of air trajectories is a widely used form of tracing the dominant flow pattern over a desired region. These trajectories are computed on the basis of gridded meteorological data interpolated/ extrapolated as per computational requirements on different co-ordinates. A few commonly used ones are the isentropic (in which flow is considered on a constant adiabatic surface), isobaric (flow on a constant pressure surface) or the kinematic coordinates (vertical velocity of air parcels taken into account).However many a times it is being seen that usage of different coordinates give different trajectory patterns over the same region at the same time which is in fact erroneous. Given this the question that arises is whether one or more of these co-ordinate based models are actually suitable or not. Hence, how do we conclude that which of these models are to be used for trajectory simulations at a desired location at a given time?