10.21
Houston ozone concentrations and the role of the large-scale sea breeze circulation
John W. Nielsen-Gammon, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX; and P. Breitenbach
Because of the interaction of the diurnal thermal forcing and the inertial frequency, the sea breeze along the southeast Texas coast takes the form of a circulation with large horizontal scale that traces a complete circle on a time hodograph. We use such a hodograph to understand the diurnal variation of the local wind as dominated by the daily mean wind and a rotating component. With this conceptualization, we show how the highest values of ozone should occur not when the large-scale wind is weakest but when the large-scale wind speed approaches the magnitude of the diurnal oscillation.
Session 10, TEXAQS air quality study: Part II
Thursday, 17 January 2002, 8:30 AM-5:00 PM
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