Nocturnal flow on a western Colorado slope

Conference · Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:6959141

Leone, Jr, J M; Gudiksen, P H

The Department of Energy sponsored Atomspheric Studies in Complex Terrain (ASCOT) program has conducted a research program designed to increase our knowledge and understanding of terrain-dominated flows with specific emphasis on nocturnal flows within mountain valleys. ASCOT has sponsored both field studies and numerical modeling efforts to improve our understanding of the wind, temperature and turbulence structure of nocturnal drainage flows. One of the most recent ASCOT sponsored field studies involves a study within the Mesa Creek Basin in western Colorado to investigate the seasonal frequency of occurrence of drainage flows along the sloped surfaces and within the basin, and to evaluate the effect of the ambient meteorology on their development. The Mesa Creek Basin, situated on the north slope of the Grand Mesa, encompasses a roughly 10 {times} 20 km area that is approximately 30 km east of Grand Junction. The observational segment of the study was undertaken jointly by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the NOAA Wave Propagation Laboratory, and involved the operation of network of eight meteorological towers and a monostatic sodar within the Mesa Creek study area over a period of one year that extended from December 1988 through November 1989. These measurements were augmented by tethersonde observations to define the vertical wind and temperature structure during a few nights. The modeling portion of the study is being undertaken by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory using a three-dimensional prognostic boundary layer model to gain further insight into the dynamics of the seasonal variations and the effect of cloud cover on the development of the drainage flows. It is the purpose of this paper to present preliminary results form a numerical simulation done as part of this study. 4 refs., 7 figs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/ER
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 6959141
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC-103587; CONF-900534-2; ON: DE90010863; TRN: 90-016227
• Resource Relation: Conference: 18. NATO/CCMS international technical meeting on air pollution modelling and its applications, Vancouver (Canada), 13-17 May 1990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
AIR FLOW
FLOW MODELS
AIR POLLUTION
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DRAINAGE
EQUATIONS OF MOTION
METEOROLOGY
MOUNTAINS
NOCTURNAL VARIATIONS
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
TURBULENCE
VALLEYS
WIND
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EQUATIONS
FLUID FLOW
GAS FLOW
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
POLLUTION
SIMULATION
VARIATIONS
540110*
990200 - Mathematics & Computers