Application of a sea-breeze index to evaluate the impact on urban energy balance fluxes

Urban areas are often located in coastal locations. This means that there are likely to be days where sea/lake breezes occur. These conditions may lead to differences in the energy balance flux partitioning. The objective of our study is to improve the interpretation of urban measurements at coastal locations. A scaling analysis of sea breezes was conducted to explore the dependence of sea-breeze speed on a set of dynamical parameters in the presence of opposing winds. This led to the development of an index for sea-breeze occurrence. (Porson A., Steyn D.G., Schayes, 2006, Boundary-Layer Meteorology; Porson A., Steyn D.G., Schayes G., 2007, J. Appl. Meteorology and Climatology). This classification was used to identify sea-breeze and non sea-breeze days. The data were stratified to allow comparison of the energy balance fluxes. This was applied to the cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, Marseilles, Miami and Vancouver. In this talk, the scaling laws for sea-breeze speed and the derivation of the sea-breeze index will be briefly outlined. The comparison between sea-breeze and non sea-breeze data sets will also be discussed. (Porson A., Grimmond C.S.B., to be submitted)