Occurrence of Kelvin-Helmholtz Billows in Sea-breeze Circulations

Plant, R. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8808-0022 and Keith, G.J. (2007) Occurrence of Kelvin-Helmholtz Billows in Sea-breeze Circulations. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, 122 (1). pp. 1-15. ISSN 0006-8314 doi: 10.1007/s10546-006-9089-x

Abstract/Summary

Centred at the interface between the sea-breeze and the return flow aloft, Kelvin-Helmholtz billows (KHB) are an important feature of the turbulent structure of some sea-breeze circulations (SBCs). In other SBCs, there are no prominent KHBs observed. Factors governing the appearance of billows are determined from a database of 139 sea breezes, constructed from two years of summertime surface observations at a site on the south coast of England. Post-frontal oscillations occur in the surface data for some SBCs and are interpreted as indicating possible KHBs aloft. The SBCs are formed under a wide range of synoptic conditions, enabling various measures of possible billow occurrence to be related to properties of the large-scale, ambient flow. Consistent with laboratory experiments of density currents, KHBs are suppressed for propagation into a head wind and enhanced with a tail wind. They are also found to be enhanced for stronger ambient wind speeds, while large-scale coast-parallel flow is effective in suppressing the billows.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-pure-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/787
Identification Number/DOI	10.1007/s10546-006-9089-x
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Central Services Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher Statement	The original publication is also available at springerlink.com
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