The Diabatic Pressure Difference: A New Diagnostic for the Analysis of Valley Winds

Abstract

he purpose of this article is to introduce a new diagnostic measure of the time-integrated diabatic (thermal) forcing of a valley?plain system. This measure can be used to synchronize the evolution of thermally induced valley winds with respect to their forcing. Differences among numerical models or model configurations originating from diabatic forcing versus those originating from the model dynamics (e.g., turbulence scheme, dynamical core, etc.) can then be distinguished.