Events

 
Colloquium

Continuous cold and warm air intrusions into a small circular crater basin - Results from the Second Meteor Crater Experiment of 2013

Tuesday, 18 October 2016, 16:45-18:15
KIT, Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung (IMK-TRO), Wolfgang-Gaede-Str.1,
Physikhochhaus, Geb.30.23, 13.OG, Seminarraum 13-2

On undisturbed clear nights a mesoscale katabatic flow on the extensive, gently inclined Colorado Plateau impacts the Barringer Meteorite Crater, a 170 m deep, 1.2 km wide circular basin surrounded by a 30-50 m high rim. Cold air builds up immediately upwind of the crater and the flow slows and splits around the crater. Above the dividing streamline the katabatic flow is lifted adiabatically over the crater's rim. The negatively buoyant lower portion of this stably stratified flow pours continuously over the crater rim and down the crater's upwind inner sidewall. The continuous inflow of negatively buoyant air accelerates down the upwind inner sidewall, losing its buoyancy and decreasing in depth as it descends. A shallow but extremely stable cold-air pool on the crater floor could not generally be penetrated by the cold-air inflow and a hydraulic jump-like feature formed on the lower sidewall as the flow approached the cold-air pool. Dual Doppler lidar and thermal IR time-lapse animations assist in visualizing these inflows.
 

This event is part of the eventgroup Meteorology Colloquium Karlsruhe
Speaker
Prof. C. David Whiteman

Research Professor, Atmospheric Sciences
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA
Organizer
IMK-TRO
Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research
KIT
Wolfgang-Gaede-Str. 1
76131 Karlsruhe
Tel: 0721 608 43356
Mail: imk-tro does-not-exist.kit edu
https://www.imk-tro.kit.edu
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