Wind Motions around the Tropical Cirrus Using Simultaneous Radar and Lidar Observations over Gadanki (13.45°N, 79.18°E), India

C. Dhananjaya Rao^1,2, M. Arunachalam Srinivasan^1*, M. Krishnaiah¹, Y. Bhavani Kumar³, S. V. B. Rao¹

¹Department of Physics, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, India.
²Seshachala Institute of Technology, Puttur, India.
³National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL), Gadanki, India.

DOI: 10.4236/ijg.2014.511103                

Abstract

The present study describes variation of peak linear depolarization ratio (LDR) with wind around the cloud altitude using simultaneous observation of winds and cirrus cloud for the first time using Indian MST radar and polarization lidar co-located over a low latitude station Gadanki (13.7°N and 79.2°E). Three different cases of passage of the cirrus at different altitudes are noticed, one during a North-East monsoon day and other two during South-West monsoon days. The zonal wind below the cloud height has shown similar variation with LDR during 02 November 2006 and the meridional wind within the cloud height during 25 July 2007 and 08 June 2006 has shown opposite variation with LDR. Even though there is a significant increase in zonal wind due to the existence of tropical easterly jet (TEJ) above cloud height during 25 July 2007 and 08 June 2006, also, the vertical wind is found to be continuously varying during 25 July 2007 and it is upward dominant in the initial stage and is mostly downward in the later stage of observation on 08 June 2006, there is a slight descent in cloud altitude only during 25 July 2007. Thus, the wind above the cloud height alone may not affect the ascent/descent of the cloud top altitude. The potential temperature gradient is high within the cloud heights when the cirrus present near the cold point tropopause indicates the maximum air-mass mixing near the tropopause.

Keywords

Cirrus Cloud, LDR, Winds, TEJ, Lidar, Radar

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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