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Revealing the onset of free convection in terrestrial planet atmospheres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Sebastian G. Els  and
Konstantinos Vogiatzis
Sebastian G. Els
Affiliation:
AURA–NIO, Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile email: sels@ctio.noao.edu
Konstantinos Vogiatzis
Affiliation:
AURA–NIO, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719, USA email: voyages@noao.edu
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Abstract

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The site testing program for the Thirty-Meter-Telescope (TMT) is monitoring the seeing conditions above several mountains. Observations are presented which show that the ground layer seeing (0 m–500 m above the ground) is influenced by the onset of free convection. It is shown that under radiation dominated conditions, indicating free convection of the atmosphere above the site, the occurence of the very best seeing conditions is supressed. A quantitative threshold for these conditions is given, allowing to estimate the shortterm future stability of the ground layer seeing.

Keywords

Atmospheric effectsconvectionturbulenceEarth

Information

Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 2 , Symposium S239: Convection in Astrophysics , August 2006 , pp. 172 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

References

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