On the Relative Intensities of Sea and Land Breezes

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Abstract
It is postulated that the observed difference in the intensities of sea and land breezes arises primarily from the diurnal variation of the stratification and the related variation of the eddy diffusion coefficients. Such time-varying properties of the medium are expected to give rise to a temporally asymmetrical circulation even when the surface forcing is symmetrical. This hypothesis is tested with a very basic sea breeze model that explicitly incorporates those physical processes mentioned above. The results demonstrate that the above hypothesis is valid, With the use of representative values for the parameters, the model yields a circulation that has a time-varying intensity and structure quite similar to those of observed sea and land breezes at different times of the day. The quantitative effects of the following important model parameters are also investigated: the relative phase angle between the forcing function and the stratification, and the magnitude as well as the x~ertical profile of the stratification and the eddy coefficients. Physical interpretations of those results are given.

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