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Strong Updraft at a Sea-Breeze Front and Associated Vertical Transport of Near-Surface Dense Aerosol Observed by Doppler Lidar and Ceilometer

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Abstract

To study the wind field within the atmospheric boundary layer over the Tokyo metropolitan area, Doppler lidar observations were made 45 km north of Sagami Bay and 30 km west of Tokyo Bay, from 14 May to 15 June 2008. Doppler lidar on 27 May 2008 observed the vertical and horizontal wind structure of a well-developed sea-breeze front (SBF) penetrating from Sagami Bay. At the SBF, a strong updraft (maximum w approximately equal to 5 m s−1) was formed with a horizontal scale of about 500 m and vertical scale of 2 km. The spatial relationship between the strong updraft over the nose of the SBF and prefrontal thermal suggests that the strong updraft was triggered by interaction between the SBF and the thermal. After the updraft commenced, a collocated ceilometer observed an intense aerosol backscatter up to 2 km above ground level. The observational results suggest that the near-surface denser aerosols trapped in the head region of the SBF escaped from the nose of the SBF and were then vertically transported up to the mixing height by the strong updraft at the SBF. This implies that these phenomena occurred not continuously but intermittently. The interaction situations between the SBF and prefrontal thermal can affect the wind structure at the SBF and the regional air quality.

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  1. Taichiro Hashiguchi

    Present address: Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan, 1-6-1 Takezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, 4-2-1 Nukui-kita, Koganei, Tokyo, Japan

    Hironori Iwai, Yasuhiro Murayama, Shoken Ishii, Kohei Mizutani & Yuichi Ohno

  2. Okinawa Electromagnetic Technology Center, 4484, Aza-Onna, Onna, Kunigami, Okinawa, Japan

    Hironori Iwai

  3. Tokyo Metropolitan University, 6-6 Asahigaoka, Hino, Tokyo, Japan

    Taichiro Hashiguchi

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  1. Hironori Iwai
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  2. Yasuhiro Murayama
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  3. Shoken Ishii
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  4. Kohei Mizutani
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Correspondence to Hironori Iwai.

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Iwai, H., Murayama, Y., Ishii, S. et al. Strong Updraft at a Sea-Breeze Front and Associated Vertical Transport of Near-Surface Dense Aerosol Observed by Doppler Lidar and Ceilometer. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 141, 117–142 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-011-9635-z

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