Atmospheric boundary-layer across Hadley and Ferrel cells over the Indian Ocean

• Main Authors: Bhat, GS, Rao, Prashanth L, Sangolli, VG
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Indian Academy of Sciences 2010
• Subjects: Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences; Indian; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/34912/; http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/34912/1/Layer.pdf; http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/

A Southern Ocean Pilot cruise covering the latitudes from 10 degrees N to 56 degrees S in the open Indian Ocean was carried out during January February 2004. Surface and upper air data collected during this cruise are reported here. It is shown that the broad features of the atmosphere, in particular that of temperature, follow the tropical and mid-latitude weather expected during January February in this region. However, the atmospheric boundary-layer shows large variations, both in its height and structure between tropics and high latitudes. Strong influence of the surface heat flux on boundary layer structure is clearly seen. Humidity field reveals several local maxima and minima, suggesting a laminated atmosphere with air from different sources moving almost unmixed in adjacent layers.