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La NiñaThe most common of several names given to a significant decrease in sea surface temperature (“cold events”) in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. La Niña is the counterpart to the El Niño “warm event,” and its spatial and temporal evolution in the equatorial Pacific is, to a considerable extent, the mirror image of El Niño, although La Niña events tend to be somewhat less regular in their behavior and duration. See also El Niño– Southern Oscillation.
Philander, S. George, 1990: El Niño, La Niña, and the Southern Oscillation, Academic Press, International Geophysics Series, Vol. 46.
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la serpeA long strip of cloud that sometimes lies against the southern base of Mount Etna in Sicily. It is said to herald rain. See contessa di vento.
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labbé(Also spelled labé.) A moderate to strong southwest wind in Provence (southeastern France), mild, humid, and very cloudy or rainy. On the coast it raises a rough sea. It is not frequent, occurring only in March. In the Swiss– French Alps it is locally termed labech, and is squally with thunder, hail, and brief torrential downpours; it comes mainly in autumn and winter.
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labileUnstable; literally, characterized by a tendency to slip.
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laboratory tankA device for physical simulation of the atmosphere, using water or other liquids as the working fluid. Classical examples are 1) rotating tanks colloquially called dishpans, to simulate long waves in the general circulation; 2) turbulence tanks to simulate boundary layer evolution and convective thermals; and 3) towing tanks to simulate pollutant dispersion associated with mean flow about an obstacle. Because of tank size limitations and the characteristics of water compared to air, not all atmospheric flows can be simulated, and care must be taken to scale or nondimensionalize the results to make them independent of the working fluid. Compare large eddy simulation models, direct numerical simulation.
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Labrador CurrentThe western boundary current of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre. The current receives considerable input of Arctic Surface Water originating from the East Greenland Current and supplied through the West Greenland and Baffin Currents. Its mean transport is close to 35 Sv (35 × 106 m3 s−1). The current is strongest in February when it carries 6 Sv more water than in August. It is also more variable in winter, with a standard deviation of 9 Sv in February but only 1 Sv in August. Near the Grand Banks it forms the polar front, also known as the cold wall, with the northward flowing Gulf Stream, with which it shares the shedding of eddies. The cold water of the Labrador Current allows icebergs from western Greenland to travel as far south as 40°N, the latitude of southern Italy.
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