Structure Analysis of the Sea Breeze Based on Doppler Lidar and Its Impact on Pollutants

Abstract

The Doppler lidar system can accurately obtain wind profiles with high spatiotemporal resolution, which plays an increasingly important role in the research of atmospheric boundary layers and sea–land breeze. In September 2019, Doppler lidars were used to carry out observation experiments of the atmospheric wind field and pollutants in Shenzhen. Weather Research and Forecasting showed that the topography of Hongkong affected the sea breeze to produce the circumfluence flow at low altitudes. Two sea breezes from the Pearl River Estuary and the northeast of Hong Kong arrived at the observation site in succession, changing the wind direction from northeast to southeast. Based on the wind profiles, the structural and turbulent characteristics of the sea breeze were analyzed. The sea breeze front was accurately captured by the algorithm based on fuzzy logic, and its arrival time was 17:30 on 25 September. The boundary between the sea breeze and the return flow was separated by the edge enhancement algorithm. From this, the height of the sea breeze head (about 1100 m) and the thickness of the sea breeze layer (about 700 m) can be obtained. The fluctuated height of the boundary and the spiral airflow nearby revealed the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. The influence of the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability could be delivered to the near-surface, which was verified by the spatiotemporal change of the horizontal wind speed and momentum flux. The intensity of the turbulence under the control of the sea breeze was significantly lower than that under the land breeze. The turbulent intensity was almost 0.1, and the dissipation rate was between 10−4 and 10−2 m2·s−3 under the land breeze. The turbulent intensity was below 0.05, and the dissipation rate was between 10−5 and 10−3 m2·s−3 under the sea breeze. The turbulent parameters showed peaks and large gradients at the boundary and the sea breeze front. The peak value of the turbulent intensity was around 0.3, and the dissipation rate was around 0.1 m2·s−3. The round-trip effect of sea–land breeze caused circulate pollutants. The recirculation factor was maintained at 0.5–0.6 at heights where the sea and land breeze alternately controlled (below 600 m), as well as increasing with a decreasing duration of the sea breeze. The factor exceeded 0.9 under the control of the high-altitude breeze (above 750 m). The convergence and rise of the airflow at the front led to collect pollutants, causing a sharp decrease in air quality when the sea breeze front passed.

Keywords

• sea breeze
• Doppler lidar
• turbulence
• Kelvin–Helmholtz instability
• Weather Research and Forecasting
• ozone