Three-Dimensional Analysis of Synoptic Satellite and Conventional Meteorological Observations

摘要

This thesis presents applications for three-dimensional displays of clouds and conventional meteorological observations. Several views of a well developed squall line over the Gulf of Mexico on 9 April 1984 are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of an improved three dimensional displays process. The squall line is analyzed using enhanced GOES infrared imagery, space shuttle photography, and three dimensional cloud scenes to demonstrate the capability of the three dimensional software to highlight the vertical structure of clouds. Also, a procedure to incorporate displays of atmospheric thermodynamic variables into the three dimensional cloud displays has been developed. The surfaces added to the cloud displays include: constant height levels, constant pressure levels, and levels of constant potential temperature. These surfaces illustrate the usefulness of the display technique for the analyzing the three dimensional structure of the atmosphere. Additionally, a technique has been developed to use lifting condensation levels as a first guess for the base heights of the clouds. Cloud bases determined from lifting condensation levels represent a more realistic approach of determining cloud base topography than the previous method of using a single flat base for all the clouds in the three dimensional display. Detailed appendices are included to demonstrate the software used and development in the this thesis. Keywords: Three dimensional display; Three dimensional analysis; Meteorological three dimensional graphics. (jhd)