Interaction of a cold front with a sea-breeze front Numerical simulations

Abstract

This paper presents simulations of a front which passed the coast between the North Sea and northern Germany and thereby experienced some modifications of its mesoscale characteristics. The event was observed during the field experiment FRONTEX’89. The two-dimensional nonhydrostatic simulations presented in this paper resemble some of the observed characteristics and yield a detailed description of the evolution of the surface front. Over the sea several narrow frontal rain bands develop in the boundary layer which becomes unstable due to the increasing sea surface temperature near the coast. The rain bands move forward relative to the the front due to the cross frontal circulation which is enhanced by the release of latent heat in the ascending warm air and by the cooling of the cold air below by evaporating precipitation. Over the heated land surface a sea-breeze front develops ahead of the synoptic-scale cold front. The strong frontal gradients of the sea-breeze front mask the broader frontal zone of the cold front at the ground. The sea-breeze front triggers deep convection ahead of the cold front in the afternoon and takes over all characteristics of the synoptic-scale front in the evening. The simulations show the mechanisms that caused the observed evolution and modification of the synoptic-scale cold front. They emphasize the strong influence of the surface heat fluxes on the characteristics of fronts on the mesoscale. The most important feature of the numerical model, necessary for the proper representation of the frontal characteristics on the mesoscale, is its high resolution. The simulations are restricted by the difficulties of finding an initial state and appropriate boundary conditions so that the results fit the observations for a long time period and that spin-up problems are avoided.