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The second-order, three-dimensional, finite-depth wave theory is here used to investigate the statistical properties of the surface elevation and wave crests of field data from Lake George, Australia. A direct comparison of experimental and numerical data shows that, as long as the nonlinearity is small, the second-order model describes the statistical properties of field data very accurately. By low-pass filtering the Lake George time series, there is evidence that some energetic wave groups are accompanied by a setup instead of a setdown. A numerical study of the coupling coefficient of the second-order model reveals that such an experimental result is consistent with the second-order theory, provided directional spreading is included in the wave spectrum. In particular, the coupling coefficient of the second-order difference contribution predicts a setup as a result of the interaction of two waves with the same frequency but with different directions. This result is also confirmed by numerical simulations. Bispectral analysis, furthermore, indicates that this setup is a statistically significant feature of the observed wave records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method to retrieve raindrop size distributions (DSD) from slant profile dual-polarization Doppler spectra observations. It is shown that using radar measurements taken at a high elevation angle raindrop size distributions can be retrieved without making an assumption on the form of a DSD. In this paper it is shown that drop size distributions can be retrieved from Doppler power spectra by compensating for the effect of spectrum broadening and mean velocity shift. To accomplish that, spectrum deconvolution is used where the spectral broadening kernel width and wind velocity are estimated from spectral differential reflectivity measurements. Since convolution kernel is estimated from dual-polarization Doppler spectra observations and does not require observation of a clear-air signal, this method can be used by most radars capable of dual-polarization spectra measurements. To validate the technique, sensitivity of this method to the underlying assumptions and calibration errors is evaluated on realistic simulations of radar observations. Furthermore, performance of the method is illustrated on Colorado State University–University of Chicago–Illinois State Water Survey radar (CSU–CHILL) measurements of stratiform precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of new tools for the analysis of nonstationary currents, including tidal currents, has been the subject of recent research. In this work a method for studies of nonstationary barotropic or baroclinic currents based on empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and singular spectrum analysis (SSA) is proposed. It represents a new alternative to other methods of analysis of tidal currents in strong interaction with nontidal forcing, for example, the continuous wavelet transform. The advantage of the SSA method resides in the fact that it is fast, easy to implement, efficient for short-time records, and is based on the covariance structure of the data. If significant tidal constituents occur in the measurements, these are determined by the method itself even with short-time-series records. This is in contrast to the harmonic analysis (HA), where a large table of tidal constituents stated a priori are fitted to the data, even if the presence of some of these are spurious and not justified physically. The method is first demonstrated in the analysis of a synthetic current time series and then applied to an hourly current ADCP profile dataset of 410 days from the northeast Brazilian shelf. In both cases the SSA results were compared to the classical HA and the neoclassical short-term HA (STHA). The description of the shelf area where the ADCP was placed, the deployment and data acquisition operations, and the quality control data analysis are included for completeness. Analysis of the full ADCP quality-controlled data was done after a separation of the subtidal from the tidal high-frequency bands, although this traditional separation is not strictly necessary and was only made to better compare with HA and STHA. Analysis of the tidal band obtained from the ADCP data showed that the extracted tidal ellipse constituents present coherent oscillations dominated by the annual and 57-day periods, and changes in the sense of rotation of the current vector from anticyclonic to cyclonic in the ellipses. The subtidal band variability is shown to be also dominated by an annual and a 57-day period component, both polarized along the isobaths, which is suggestive of a nonlinear interaction of the subtidal and the tidal variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of combining equatorial planetary wave drag and gravity wave drag in a one-dimensional zonal mean model of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO). Several different combinations of planetary wave and gravity wave drag schemes are considered in the investigations, with the aim being to assess which aspects of the different schemes affect the nature of the modeled QBO. Results show that it is possible to generate a realistic-looking QBO with various combinations of drag from the two types of waves, but there are some constraints on the wave input spectra and amplitudes. For example, if the phase speeds of the gravity waves in the input spectrum are large relative to those of the equatorial planetary waves, critical level absorption of the equatorial planetary waves may occur. The resulting mean-wind oscillation, in that case, is driven almost exclusively by the gravity wave drag, with only a small contribution from the planetary waves at low levels. With an appropriate choice of wave input parameters, it is possible to obtain a QBO with a realistic period and to which both types of waves contribute. This is the regime in which the terrestrial QBO appears to reside. There may also be constraints on the initial strength of the wind shear, and these are similar to the constraints that apply when gravity wave drag is used without any planetary wave drag. In recent years, it has been observed that, in order to simulate the QBO accurately, general circulation models require parameterized gravity wave drag, in addition to the drag from resolved planetary-scale waves, and that even if the planetary wave amplitudes are incorrect, the gravity wave drag can be adjusted to compensate. This study provides a basis for knowing that such a compensation is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]