The influence of the Atlantic Warm Pool on the Florida panhandle sea breeze

Journal of Geophysical Research D: Atmospheres
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Abstract

In this paper we examine the variations of the boreal summer season sea breeze circulation along the Florida panhandle coast from relatively high resolution (10 km) regional climate model integrations. The 23 year climatology (1979-2001) of the multidecadal dynamically downscaled simulations forced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Department of Energy (NCEP-DOE) Reanalysis II at the lateral boundaries verify quite well with the observed climatology. The variations at diurnal and interannual time scales are also well simulated with respect to the observations. We show from composite analyses made from these downscaled simulations that sea breezes in northwestern Florida are associated with changes in the size of the Atlantic Warm Pool (AWP) on interannual time scales. In large AWP years when the North Atlantic Subtropical High becomes weaker and moves further eastward relative to the small AWP years, a large part of the southeast U.S. including Florida comes under the influence of relatively strong anomalous low-level northerly flow and large-scale subsidence consistent with the theory of the Sverdrup balance. This tends to suppress the diurnal convection over the Florida panhandle coast in large AWP years. This study is also an illustration of the benefit of dynamic downscaling in understanding the low-frequency variations of the sea breeze. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union.
Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title The influence of the Atlantic Warm Pool on the Florida panhandle sea breeze
Series title Journal of Geophysical Research D: Atmospheres
DOI 10.1029/2010JD015367
Volume 116
Issue 15
Year Published 2011
Language English
Larger Work Type Article
Larger Work Subtype Journal Article
Larger Work Title Journal of Geophysical Research D: Atmospheres
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