Tuesday, 31 July 2001: 1:15 PM
The subtropical sea breeze
The sea breeze in Southeast Texas is critical for transport of ozone and its precursors in the Houston area. Regular and special observations during the Texas 2000 Air Quality Study show that the land/sea breeze extends over 400 km offshore and possesses a complicated vertical structure. Unlike most midlatitude locations, the maximum strength of the sea breeze occurs late at night. We will discuss these observations in the context of linear sea breeze theory by Rotunno and Niino, which predicts an inertia-gravity wave response with an unusually large aspect ratio for coastlines just equatorward of 30 degrees.
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