Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Enhancing the Satellite View of the Atmosphere

#2059 "Singleton Sunset Reflection" Pixels Link
An important digression before we return to the dry conveyor belt story which is written in the invisible ink of dry  air... it is important to appreciate the importance of satellite imagery and water vapour in particular in understanding the conveyor belts conceptual model and the atmosphere around us.

Historically I preferred using simple grey scale enhancements in satellite imagery. A particulart shade of grey can be related to the brightness or energy returned from every point in the image. A smart enhancement only spends those grey shades over the energy levels that one should expect to observe. That was the premise for those early days when I created special enhancements for the sunrise and sunset periods in order to glean every last bit of information from the visible satellite imagery. The relativity between the brightness of every picture element or pixel in the scene was preserved but greatly enhanced. The resulting pattern could be better interpreted as to what it meant meteorologically just in time for the early morning forecasts.
Enhanced Visible Imagery from 1981 and 1982
The human eye can really only see 30 shades of grey depending on the lighting. In the early days of satellite and computer technology I would struggle to see more than 15 different shades of grey . The images and their messages got fuzzy. If seeing the pattern is a challenge then that shape and the meteorology it represents are probably not worth finding anyway. The analysis and diagnosis of iffy  pixels was not justifiable.

On a colourful note, the human eye is capable of detecting around 10 million unique colours. Of course these colours need to be selected prudently to display the brightness temperatures from the satellite. The use of an excessive number of colours can result in an abstract work of art and science. Meteorologists can get as easily confused as anyone else. The use of these colours can highlight specific meteorologically important quantities and processes that might otherwise be missed in the world and whorls of black and white. I employed a lot of colours in my work with infra-red satellite imagery in those early days.

The water vapour enhancements used by UCAR are suitably linear and simple. They are as good as it gets for use in diagnosing the atmospheric conveyor belts. The subtle patterns and shapes in the water vapour pixel topography are greatly enhanced. The rising surfaces of the warm conveyor belt comprised of high and cold water vapour are displayed in cool shades of purple and green. The sinking dry and warm conveyor belt is witnessed in hot shades of orange and red - artistic earth tones. A linear grey scale is used to exhibit the water vapour surfaces between these cold and hot extremes. This three way use of colour and grey shades reveal to the human eye the very important physical processes that create the weather in our atmosphere. Water vapour imagery taught me about the importance of one’s frame of reference and swirls. The natural patterns are really quite beautiful as well. The science in the art was unmistakable.

Not everyone sees things the same way though. I used a lot of arm waving and right hand thumbs while in the Atmospheric Environment Service Training Branch, in an attempt to explain what the water vapour imagery was saying. Some of that material is included in these Blog Journals. At that time the message of the satellite imagery was competing with the very seductive numerical presentations of the weather. The numerical weather prediction (NWP) was getting much better and prettier by the month. Remote sensing depicted the real atmosphere but there were concerns and deciphering the messages in the satellite data could be challenging.
Two of the several geostationary satellites above the equator

The geostationary satellites parked above the equator provide terrific imagery in terms of time and space continuity. The drawback with this singular view is that layers of high water vapour in the lower latitudes can obscure important meteorological features below. The graphic will explain this concern.
High Level Moisture Obscures Lower Level Processes
In addition, it can be a challenge to "see" the water vapour imagery in the three dimensions that the atmosphere moves in. One needs imagination to envision what is not painted in the picture.

Looking northeast across North America
One day in 2012 during a break with my COMET friends in Boulder, I expressed a dream to make the three dimensionality of the water vapour (WV) more obvious. If we could only use the WV brightness temperature as the vertical axis and turn the water vapour into a 3-dimensional image... wouldn't that be instructive! It maybe took a day for the creative folks at COMET to achieve that dream. Here are the first examples of what the water vapour can reveal in 3-dimensions. The water vapour topographical surfaces could be turned and twisted into any orientation on the computer screen. The atmospheric secrets were obvious when you enhanced for them. The images can still not reveal what is hidden under higher level obscurations but the three dimensional flows of the conveyor belts were recognizable. This imagery could be produced in real time to aid the meteorologist. I was disappointed when few others were as excited as I was about this development. Sadly, it reminded me of my experience with enhanced visible imagery from the early eighties.
Looking southeast across North America
Those same co-workers are not yet retired and are working on interactive displays to allow the curious to walk through the conveyor belt conceptual model (coming in a future blog) among other meteorological concepts. These same approaches will also allow people to stroll through the weather forecast in four-dimensions including time ... imagine!

The natural world is a terrific and fascinating place. Technology may help us to understand and appreciate it before it is too late! This reminds me of Joni Mitchell's “Big Yellow Taxi”.

"They paved paradise And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique 
And a swinging hot spot 
Don't it always seem to go 
That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone 
They paved paradise..."

In any event, weather satellites and our understanding of the atmosphere continue to improve. The movement of dry air is every bit as important as the circulations of clouds. Here is a weather information site created and maintained by my friends in Boulder, Colorado. I think you will find it very useful.

http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/satellite/ and select  Water Vapor (mid)

That's enough for today... much more to come. 

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,
Phil the Forecaster Chadwick

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

The Dry Conveyor Belt



#2057 "Deformation Cirrus"
This is the next step in understanding the conveyor belt conceptual model (CBCM) which replicates the wind patterns found with a mid latitude low pressure area. The CBCM is fundamental to the understanding of cloud and weather patterns. The idealized conveyor belts are in the atmospheric frame of reference relative to the low.

Dry Conveyor Belt (DCB - Orange Arrow)        
The dry conveyor belt (DCB) is the contrasting dance partner for the warm conveyor belt (WCB) in the weather ballet. The warm conveyor belt transports heat and moisture northward. The dry conveyor belt takes cooler and drier air southward. Both are essential to the energy balance of the earth so that in the long term the distribution of heat and moisture around the globe is in balance.  Both are also tied together by the jet stream which is the purple arrow in the CBCM graphic.  

The dry conveyor belt originates from high levels at more northern latitudes and follows the constant energy isentropic surfaces downward as it plows toward the south on the western flank of the warm conveyor belt (WCB). The air is relatively dry to start with and becomes drier and warmer as it descends. There are minimal cloud tracers and the atmosphere uses invisible ink to write this part of the weather story of the storm. The croquet hoop and smoke ring analogies can still be used but without cloud or smoke, one must use your imagination to visualize the circulation. 

The leading edge of the dry conveyor belt is also a bowed shaped deformation zone. The anticyclonic branch of the dry conveyor belt tends to penetrate further south and lower in the atmosphere. This anticyclonic companion flow is drier, lower and warmer that its cyclonic companion across the guiding flow. The cyclonic companion typically turns east or even northeastward and rises again on the sloped isentropic surfaces. These circulations help to define the character of the cyclonic companion of the warm conveyor belt and the associated cold front.

Water Vapour Imaged June 1st, 2020
http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/
How does one study something that is dry? The dry conveyor belt is largely invisible on the visible and infrared satellite imagery. Notable by the absence of clouds. This is not the case in water vapour (WV) imagery which senses the top few millimeters of water vapour uppermost in the atmosphere. Now you know why I embraced the lower resolution and grainy water vapour pictures when they first appeared in the forecast office. The patterns and shapes so obvious in the clouds and weather of the warm conveyor belt were also present in the dryness of the DCB. The dry air also moved like a fluid choreographed by the other another important air flow. In forecast operations this required even more arm waving... more than most meteorologists could take.
Water Vapour Imaged June 1st, 2020 - Detail of the DCB

I use the water vapour imagery to summarize the dance moves of both the warm and dry conveyors belts. In the process of summarizing the weather story behind a painting, it is the only piece of data I ever really need to archive. 
Here is the water vapour image that tells the tale behind #2057 "DeformationCirrus". The accompanying graphics will refresh the lessons learned about the warm conveyor belt and the deformation zone conceptual model which is the star of the painting. Next week we will learn even more about the dry conveyor belt (DCB).

Warmest regards and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil the Forecaster