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Scaling Characteristics of Developing Sea Breezes Simulated in a Water Tank

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Abstract

Sea-breeze circulations in a stably stratified environment have been simulated in a water tank. The floor of the tank was divided into two halves representing land and sea; the land side was heated from the bottom of the tank, and the sea side was insulated by an underlying sponge slab. The temperature profiles over both land and sea sides, the land–sea temperature difference, and the horizontal temperature distributions were measured. Particle tracking velocimetry was applied to obtain the two-dimensional velocity field orthogonal to the coastline. It was shown that the overall flow consists of a closed circulation caused by the horizontal temperature difference between land and sea, and a strong updraft occurring at the sea-breeze front. The dimensionless governing parameters are calculated from the measurements and used to characterize the developing sea breezes. The analysis confirms the scaling laws for sea-breeze velocity and depth. The results indicate that the scaling characteristics of the sea-breeze translation speed during the developing period are different to those during the following maintaining period. A criterion for the onset of the sea breeze is proposed based on these results.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the CAS knowledge innovation project under Grant No. KZCX2-YW-QN502, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40975006, 40975004) and the State Key Basic Program (973 Program) under Grant No. 2010CB428501. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose suggestions greatly helped to improve this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Renmin Yuan, Tao Luo & Xuping Wu

  2. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, 22 Hankou Road, Nanjing, 210093, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Jianning Sun

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  1. Renmin Yuan
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  2. Jianning Sun
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  3. Tao Luo
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  4. Xuping Wu
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Correspondence to Jianning Sun.

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Yuan, R., Sun, J., Luo, T. et al. Scaling Characteristics of Developing Sea Breezes Simulated in a Water Tank. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 148, 455–478 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-013-9824-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-013-9824-z

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