UX Ret and CN Hyi: hipparcos photometry analysis

We present an analysis of the Hipparcos photometry of the contact binary systems UX Ret and CN Hyi. The Wilson-Devinney code is employed to model the V band light curve for several fixed values of the mass ratio. From the quality-of-fit of the different solutions a final solution is derived for each system. Absolute values of the system are derived using the parallax data from the Hipparcos catalog. Analysis of the V band photometry of two stars (EL Aqr and FN Cam) with spectroscopically known mass ratios is also provided as a validation for the methods adopted for this study.     

Impact of the Mass Parameter on Particle Dynamics in a Ring Configuration of N Bodies

Parameters play a very important and determinative role in the dynamics of a dynamical system as well as in the formation of its particular characteristics. In this paper we investigate the way in which a large scale variation of the mass parameter, influences the behavior of a mass-less particle which moves in the vicinity of a ring arrangement of N-bodies. More precisely, we study the impact of this parameter on periodic motions and their characteristics.     

On Charged Analogues of Buchdahl’S Type Fluid Spheres

In this article the charged analogues of recently derived Buchdahl’s type fluid spheres have been obtained by considering a particular form of electric field intensity. In this process, Einstein–Maxwell field equations yield eight different classes of solutions, joining smoothly with the exterior Reissner–Nordstrom metric at the pressure free intersurface. Out of the eight solutions only seven could be utilized to represent superdense star models with ultrahigh surface density of the order 2×10¹⁴ gm cm⁻³. The maximum masses of the star models were found to be 8.223931M_Θ and 8.460857M_Θ subject to strong and weak energy conditions, respectively, which are much higher than the maximum masses 3.82M_Θ and 4.57M_Θ allowed in the neutral cases. The velocity of sound seen to be less than that of light throughout the star models.     

Methodological Development of the Conditional Sampling Method. Part II: Quality Control Criteria of Relaxed Eddy Accumulation Flux Measurements

Determination of biosphere–atmosphere exchanges requires accurate quantification of the turbulent fluxes of energy and of a wide variety of trace gases. Relaxed Eddy Accumulation (REA) is a method that has received increasing attention in recent years, because it does not require any rapid sensor for the scalar measurements as the Eddy Correlation method (EC) does. As in all micrometeorological studies, REA measurements in the atmospheric surface layer are valid under some restrictive conditions so as to be representative of a specific ecosystem. These conditions are the homogeneity of the underlying surface, stationary and horizontally homogeneous turbulence. For most experiments these conditions are not fully satisfied. Data uncertainties can also be related to not fulfilling the method principles or to the technical characteristics of the REA system itself. In order to assess REA measurement quality, a methodological approach of data analysis is developed in this study. This methodological analysis is based on the establishment of criteria for data quality control. A set of them, deduced from the mean and turbulent flow, are called ‘Dynamic criteria’ and are designated to control the stationarity and homogeneity of the w function and the validation of Taylor’s hypothesis. A second set (‘REA operational criteria’) is designed to check the sampling process and, more precisely, the homogeneity of the negative and positive selection process throughout the sampling period. A third set of criteria (‘Chemical scalar criteria’) concerns the scalar measurements. Results of the criteria application to data measured at two different experimental sites are also presented. Cut-off limits of criteria are defined based on their statistical distribution and shown to be specific for each site. Strictness of each criterion, defined by the percentage of flagged samples, is analysed in conjunction with the meteorological conditions and atmospheric stability. It is found that flagged samples mainly correspond to neutral and stable nocturnal conditions. During daytime, nearly free convection conditions can also yield poor quality data.     

Wave Flow Simulations Over Arctic Leads

We investigate the flow over Arctic leads using a mesoscale numerical model, typical of both summer and winter, under idealised conditions. We find that Arctic leads may be the source of standing atmospheric internal gravity waves during both seasons. The summertime wave may be compared with the wave generated by a small ridge, though with the phase reversed. The mechanism for exciting the wave is found to be the internal boundary layer developing due to horizontal variations in surface temperature and roughness length. During the more exploratory wintertime simulations, with substantial temperature difference between the lead and the ice surface, we find that secondary circulations and intermittent wave-breaking may occur. The effects of the lead appear far downstream.     

‘Surface Drag in the Arctic Marginal Sea-ice Zone: A Comparison of Different Parameterisation Concepts’

Two parameterisation schemes for the turbulent surface fluxes and drag coefficients over the Arctic marginal sea-ice zone (MIZ) are (further) developed, and their results are compared with each other. Although the schemes are based on different principles (flux averaging and parameter averaging), the resulting drag coefficients differ only slightly in the case of neutral and stable stratification. For unstable stratification and sea-ice conditions being typical for the north-eastern Fram Strait, the drag coefficients resulting from the parameter-averaging concept are 5–10% larger than those of the flux-averaging concept. At a sea-ice concentration of 45%, the parameter-averaging method overestimates the heat fluxes by a factor of 1.2. An inclusion in the schemes of form drag caused by floe edges and ridges has a much larger effect on the drag coefficient, and on the momentum fluxes, than the choice between the parameter-averaging or flux-averaging methods. Based on sensitivity studies with the flux-averaging scheme, a simple formula for the effective drag coefficient above the Arctic MIZ is derived. It reduces the computational costs of the more complex parameterisations and could also be used in larger scale models. With this simple formula, the effective drag coefficient can be calculated as a function of the sea-ice concentration and skin drag coefficients for water and ice floes. The results obtained with this parameterisation differ only slightly from those using the more complex schemes. Finally, it is shown that in the MIZ, drag coefficients for sea-ice models may differ significantly from the effective drag coefficients used in atmospheric models.     

The Summer Arctic Boundary Layer during the Arctic Ocean Experiment 2001 (AOE-2001)

Boundary-layer measurements made from the Swedish icebreaker Oden during the Arctic Ocean Experiment 2001 (AOE-2001) are analysed. They refer mainly to ice drift in the central Arctic during the period 2–21 August 2001. On board Oden a remote sensing array with a wind profiler, cloud radar and a scanning microwave radiometer, and a regular weather station operated continuously; soundings were also released during research stations. Turbulence and profile measurements on an 18-m mast were deployed on the ice, along with two sodar systems, a microbarograph array and a tethered sounding system. Surface flux and meteorological stations were also deployed on nearby ice floes. There is a clear diurnal cycle in radiation and also in wind speed, cloud base and visibility. It is absent in temperature and humidity, probably due to the very strong control by melting/ freezing ice and snow. In the advection of warm air, latent heat of melting maintains the surface temperature at 0 °C, while with a negative energy balance the latent heat of freezing of the salty ocean water acts to maintain the surface temperature > −2 °C. The constant presence of water at the surface maintains a relative humidity close to 100%, and this is also often facilitated by an increasing specific humidity through the capping inversion, making entrainment a moisture source. This ensures cloudy conditions, with low cloud and fog prevailing most of the time. Intrusions of warm and moist air from beyond the ice edge are frequent, but the local Arctic boundary layer remains at a relatively constant temperature, and is shallow and well mixed with strong capping inversions. Power spectra of surface-layer wind speed sometimes show large variance at low frequency. A scanning radiometer provides a monitoring of the vertical thermal structure with a spatial and temporal resolution not seen before in the Arctic. There are often two inversions, an elevated main inversion and a weak surface inversion, and occasionally additional inversions occur. Enhanced entrainment across the main inversion appears to occur during frontal passages. Variance of the scanning radiometer temperatures occurs in large pulses rather than varying smoothly, and the height to the maximum variance appears to be a reasonable proxy for the boundary-layer depth.     

‘A Case Study on a Polar Cold Air Outbreak over Fram Strait using a Mesoscale Weather Prediction Model’

The mesoscale weather prediction model ’Lokal-Modell’ (LM) of the Deutscher Wetterdienst is applied to the situation of an Arctic cold air outbreak in the Fram Strait region in April 1998. Observations are available from a flight along 5⁰E carried out during the ARTIST campaign. Initial and time-dependent boundary data for the simulation are taken from a larger scale operational model system. Using the standard configuration of LM, the simulation reproduced the propagation of cold air and the characteristic structure of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) in fair agreement with the observations. However, a detailed comparison revealed three basic problems. Firstly, there is evidence that the available data on sea-ice conditions were insufficient approximations to the true state for several reasons. A modification of the sea-ice data towards observations revealed that parts of the discrepancies were due to the original sea-ice data. Secondly, a control run with the model in its standard configuration shows an insufficient warming of the ABL downstream of the ice edge due to underestimation of surface heat fluxes. A simple modification of the approach for the scalar roughness length resulted in the strongest benefit, while comparative studies showed only a slight sensitivity to different types of parametrisation of turbulent mixing or the inclusion of an additional moist convection parametrisation. Thirdly, in all the simulations the deepening of the convective ABL downstream of the ice edge is weaker than observed. This may be partly due to the thermal stratification above the ABL in the analysis data, which is more stable than observed; but it may also be a hint to the fact that processes near the inversion are insufficiently parametrised in mesoscale models with resolutions as used in LM. The simulated cloud layer in the convective ABL is similar to that observed with respect to condensate content, a sharply defined cloud top, a diffuse lower bound, and continuous light precipitation.     

Boundary-Layer Adjustment Over Small-Scale Changes of Surface Heat Flux

Four months of eddy correlation data collected over a grass field and a nearby sage brush community are analyzed to examine the adjustment of the boundary-layer structure as it flows from the heated brush to the snow-covered grass. The grass site includes a 34-m tower with seven levels of eddy correlation data. The midday heat flux over the snow-covered grass and bare ground surfaces is often downward particularly with melting conditions, while the corresponding heat flux over the brush is almost always upward. For most of these cases, a stable internal boundary layer over the snow is well defined in terms of vertical profiles of the buoyancy flux over the snow-covered grass. The stable internal boundary layer is generally embedded within a deeper layer of flux divergence corresponding to increasing upward heat flux with height above the internal boundary layer. With thin snow cover, the surface heat flux over the grass is weak upward due to heating of grass protruding above the snow so that the flow adjusts to a decrease of the upward surface heat flux in the downwind direction. This common case of an adjusting boundary layer contrasts with the formation of an internal boundary layer due to a change of sign of the surface heat in flux the downwind direction. The adjustment of the boundary layer to the decrease of the surface heat flux leads to vertical divergence of the upward heat flux in contrast to the usual heated boundary layer over homogeneous surfaces. The consequences of the cooling due to the vertical divergence of the heat flux are discussed in terms of the heat budget of the adjusting and internal boundary layers.     

Summer boundary-layer height at the plateau site of Dome’C,antarctica

Measurements of the mean and turbulent structure of the planetary boundary layer using a sodar and a sonic anemometer, and radiative measurements using a radiometer, were carried out in the summer of 1999–2000 at the Antarctic plateau station of Dome C during a two-month period. At Dome C strong ground-based inversions dominate for most of the year. However, in spite of the low surface temperatures (between −50 and −20 °C), and the surface always covered by snow and ice, a regular daytime boundary-layer evolution, similar to that observed at mid-latitudes, was observed during summertime. The mixed-layer height generally reaches 200–300 m at 1300–1400 LST in high summer (late December, early January); late in the summer (end of January to February), as the solar elevation decreases, it reduces to 100–200 m. A comparison between the mixed-layer height estimated from sodar measurements and that calculated using a mixed-layer growth model shows a rather satisfactory agreement if we assign a value of 0.01–0.02 m s⁻¹ to the subsidence velocity at the top of the mixed layer, and a value of 0.003–0.004 K m⁻¹ to the potential temperature gradient above the mixed layer.