Residuals for the observations of the 62 selected minor planets

This paper reports results of the improvement of orbital elements of the 62 minor planets included in the Hipparcos mission. The astrometric observations supplied by the Minor Planet Center and the meridian circles at La Palma and Bordeaux observatories were used by the author. The accuracy reached (RMS O-C) for each minor planet and for La Palma and Bordeaux observations are presented.     

Anisotropy of Unstably Stratified Near-Surface Turbulence

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - Classic Monin–Obukov similarity scaling states that in a stationary, horizontally homogeneous flow, in the absence of subsidence, turbulence is dictated by the...     

Perturbations to the Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of the Diurnally-Varying Atmospheric Boundary Layer Due to an Extensive Wind Farm

The effect of extensive terrestrial wind farms on the spatio-temporal structure of the diurnally-evolving atmospheric boundary layer is explored. High-resolution large-eddy simulations of a realistic diurnal cycle with an embedded wind farm are performed. Simulations are forced by a constant geostrophic velocity with time-varying surface boundary conditions derived from a selected period of the CASES-99 field campaign. Through analysis of the bulk statistics of the flow as a function of height and time, it is shown that extensive wind farms shift the inertial oscillations and the associated nocturnal low-level jet vertically upwards by approximately 200 m; cause a three times stronger stratification between the surface and the rotor-disk region, and as a consequence, delay the formation and growth of the convective boundary layer (CBL) by approximately 2 h. These perturbations are shown to have a direct impact on the potential power output of an extensive wind farm with the displacement of the low-level jet causing lower power output during the night as compared to the day. The low-power regime at night is shown to persist for almost 2 h beyond the morning transition due to the reduced growth of the CBL. It is shown that the wind farm induces a deeper entrainment region with greater entrainment fluxes. Finally, it is found that the diurnally-averaged effective roughness length for wind farms is much lower than the reference value computed theoretically for neutral conditions.     

Large Wind Farms and the Scalar Flux over an Heterogeneously Rough Land Surface

The influence of surface heterogeneities extends vertically within the atmospheric surface layer to the so-called blending height, causing changes in the fluxes of momentum and scalars. Inside this region the turbulence structure cannot be treated as horizontally homogeneous; it is highly dependent on the local surface roughness, the buoyancy and the horizontal scale of heterogeneity. The present study analyzes the change in scalar flux induced by the presence of a large wind farm installed across a heterogeneously rough surface. The change in the internal atmospheric boundary-layer structure due to the large wind farm is decomposed and the change in the overall surface scalar flux is assessed. The equilibrium length scale characteristic of surface roughness transitions is found to be determined by the relative position of the smooth-to-rough transition and the wind turbines. It is shown that the change induced by large wind farms on the scalar flux is of the same order of magnitude as the adjustment they naturally undergo due to surface patchiness.