Influences of Moist Convection on a Cold-Season Outbreak of Clear-Air Turbulence (CAT)

Abstract

Abstract The 9–10 March 2006 aviation turbulence outbreak over the central United States is examined using observations and numerical simulations. Though the turbulence occurs within a deep synoptic cyclone with widespread precipitation, comparison of reports from commercial aircraft with radar and satellite data reveals the majority of the turbulence to be in clear air. This clear-air turbulence (CAT) is located above a strong upper-level jet, where vertical shear ranged between 20 and 30 m s−1 km−1. Comparison of a moist simulation with a dry simulation reveals that simulated vertical shear and subgrid turbulence kinetic energy is significantly enhanced by the anticyclonic upper-level flow perturbation associated with the organized convection in regions of observed CAT. A higher-resolution simulation is used to examine turbulence mechanisms in two primary clusters of reported moderate and severe turbulence. In the northern cluster where vertical shear is strongest, the simulated turbulence arises from Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) instability. The turbulence farther south occurs several kilometers above shallow, but vigorous, moist convection. There, the simulated turbulence is influenced by vertically propagating gravity waves initiated when the convection impinges on a lowered tropopause. In some locations these gravity waves amplify and break leading directly to turbulence, while in others they aid turbulence development by helping excite KH instability within the layers of strongest vertical shear above them. Although both clusters of turbulence occur either above or laterally displaced from cloud, a shared characteristic is their owed existence to moist convection within the wintertime cyclone, which distinguishes them from traditional CAT.