Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Section of Atmospheric Composition Research
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Section of Atmospheric Composition Research
| level(hPa) | 250 | 250 | 250 | 250 | 250 | 250 | 500 | 700 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 UTC | PV | Z | wind | Q | RH | W | W | EpotT |
| 12 UTC | PV | Z | wind | Q | RH | W | W | EpotT |
| Time UTC | 6 | 12 |
| Time UTC | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parameter | PV | Q | EpotT | U | W | CC | PV | Q | EpotT | U | W | CC |
| Parameter | T | Pott T | Wind speed | Wind dir. | PV | H2O | Pressure |
| Map | 7.30-8 | 8-8.30 | 8.30-9 | 9-9.30 | 9.30-10 | 10-10.30 | 10.30-11 |
| P(time) | 7.30-8 | 8-8.30 | 8.30-9 | 9-9.30 | 9.30-10 | 10-10.30 | 10.30-11 |
This flight was the return flight from Shannon to Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.
The map of PV at 250 hPa and the tropopause pressure map show ridges, high tropopauses, over Britain and Germany. The tropopause there goes up to about 189 hPa. These maps also show some filamentary structure through which the aircraft may have flown. The vertical cross section of PV shows that the filaments correspond to only a very small variation of the tropopause height along the aircraft flight track.
A strong jet stream is northwest to southeast aligned over Denmark (see wind at 250 hPa). The corresponding low level front is very pronounced (see eq. potential temperature at 700 hPa). The wind along the flight path increases from about 5 m/s near Shannon to almost 35 m/s near Oberpfaffenhofen (landing). Near Shannon at 10W, 52 N the wind map at 250 hPa also shows stagnation of the flow.
The vertical wind at 250 hPa is downward along the flight track, and consistently the model showed no cloud cover along most of the flight track, except in the lower troposphere.
Trajectories:
The backward trajectories for 8h-8h32 make almost two and half anti-cyclonic rotations in the high.
The trajectories from 8h38-10h02 ending at FL330 (262 hPa) and FL350 (239 hPa) stick rather close together horizontally and vertically and orginate over the southeastern US.
After this the trajectories are much more divergent, but most originate in the West-Atlantic upper troposphere. Only 2 trajectories (at 10h24 and 10h26 in the upper part of the descent of the Falcon)
show indications of ascent from the lower troposphere.