A Sea Breeze Study during Ticosonde-NAME 2004 in the Central Pacific of Costa Rica: Observations and Numerical Modeling

Abstract

Surface and upper air observations and MM5v3 simulations examined the structure and inland penetration of sea breeze (SB) along the Grande de Tárcoles river basin (GTRB), central Pacific, Costa Rica, for two different intensity regimes of the Caribbean Low-Level Jet (CLLJ). Data comprise the period of 1 July to 16 September 2004 from Ticosonde-North American Monsoon Experiment, and a local University of Costa Rica-National Meteorological Institute field campaign. Maximum precipitation occurs between 14:00–17:00 LST, showing a time lag of 2 to 3 h after the temperature maximum, suggesting that local diurnal heating is key to convection. July–August precipitation exhibited a rainfall decrease along GTRB due to the SB dynamical processes interaction with a strong CLLJ. The SB maximum inland incursion was 24 km, with no evidence of its penetration into the Central Valley. The MM5v3 simulations for two convective and boundary layer (BL) schemes captured some SB structure features along the GTRB. Comparison of model results with observed data shows deficiencies in the model representation of the surface flow near coastal regions. Differences may be the result of time lag model’s poor responses to actual early morning BL sea–land temperature gradients. MM5v3 configurations used in this study resulted in biased wind speed simulations.

Keywords

• MM5v3
• CLLJ
• Central America
• sea breeze
• diurnal cycle
• precipitation