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Sikdar, D. N.

Publications and source records attributed to Sikdar, D. N..

11 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1985

Large-scale circulation departures related to wet episodes in northeast Brazil

Large scale circulation features are presented as related to wet spells over northeast Brazil (Nordeste) during the rainy season (March and April) of 1979. The rainy season season is devided into dry and wet periods, the FGGE and geostationary satellite data was averaged and mean and departure fields of basic variables and cloudiness were studied. Analysis of seasonal mean circulation features show: lowest sea level easterlies beneath upper level westerlies; weak meridional winds; high relative humidity over the Amazon basin and relatively dry conditions over the South Atlantic Ocean. A fluctuation was found in the large scale circulation features on time scales of a few weeks or so over Nordeste and the South Atlantic sector. Even the subtropical High SLP's have large departures during wet episodes, implying a short period oscillation in the Southern Hemisphere Hadley circulation.

Sikdar, D. N.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Estimating GATE rainfall with geosynchronous satellite images

A method of estimating GATE rainfall from either visible or infrared images of geosynchronous satellites is described. Rain is estimated from cumulonimbus cloud area by the equation R = a sub 0 A + a sub 1 dA/dt, where R is volumetric rainfall, A cloud area, t time, and a sub 0 and a sub 1 are constants. Rainfall, calculated from 5.3 cm ship radar, and cloud area are measured from clouds in the tropical North Atlantic. The constants a sub 0 and a sub 1 are fit to these measurements by the least-squares method. Hourly estimates by the infrared version of this technique correlate well (correlation coefficient of 0.84) with rain totals derived from composited radar for an area of 100,000 sq km. The accuracy of this method is described and compared to that of another technique using geosynchronous satellite images. It is concluded that this technique provides useful estimates of tropical oceanic rainfall on a convective scale.

Stout, J. E.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Correlation between cloud thickness and brightness using Nimbus 4 THIR data /11.5-micron channel/ and ATS 3 digital data

Nimbus 4 data (11.5-micron) channel and ATS 3 digitized data were analyzed for three days during April and May 1970. Cloud-top temperature, as measured by the 11.5-micron channel of the satellite radiometer, shows a close negative correlation with cloud brightness measured by the ATS 3 satellite. This is especially true in well-developed cumulonimbus clouds. An estimate of cloud heights corresponding to cloud-top temperature was obtained by using radiosonde data and radar images, and the relationships between the cloud thickness and brightness counts were derived for the cumulonimbus clouds.

Park, S.-U.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Time-spectral characteristics of large-scale cloud systems in the tropical Pacific.

Study of time series of areal cloud coverage over the central Pacific to determine the large-scale variations of tropical disturbance activity for a four-month period in 1967. The persistent and fluctuating components are found to be more prevalent in regions of high and low mean cloudiness, respectively, with major longitudinal variations in activity most evident in the Southern Hemisphere. Normalized power spectra show that the transient activity occurring in the equatorial zone is dominated by shorter periods of about four days, while longer periods are dominant away from the equator. Coherency magnitudes and phases between different locations indicate that propagating cloud systems are most identifiable at lower frequencies in the Southern Hemisphere, and at somewhat higher frequencies in the Northern Hemisphere. Activity with periods in excess of five days consists largely of both westward and eastward propagation on the planetary wave scale. The shorter periods appear to consist of both synoptic-scale and planetary-scale modes, with westward propagation dominant near the equator.

Sikdar, D. N.↗
NASA NTRS1972

On the remote sensing of mesoscale tropical convection intensity from a geostationary satellite.

This paper develops an objective technique for estimating the mass and energy exchange in convection systems corresponding to altocumulus cumulogenitus and cumulonimbus intensities using measurements of the area change of the cirrus outflow on a sequence of satellite cloud photographs obtained at geostationary altitude. The data clearly show that: (1) the technique is able to isolate vigorous and moderate convection regimes on the geostationary satellite cloud photos; and (2) the model-estimated mass and energy are consistent with ground-based measurements such as those of Braham and Brown.

Sikdar, D. N.↗
NASA NTRS1971

The pointing errors of geosynchronous satellites

A study of the correlation between cloud motion and wind field was initiated. Cloud heights and displacements were being obtained from a ceilometer and movie pictures, while winds were measured from pilot balloon observations on a near-simultaneous basis. Cloud motion vectors were obtained from time-lapse cloud pictures, using the WINDCO program, for 27, 28 July, 1969, in the Atlantic. The relationship between observed features of cloud clusters and the ambient wind field derived from cloud trajectories on a wide range of space and time scales is discussed.

Sikdar, D. N.↗