A linear model for the sea breeze circulation relevant for the tropical regions. A. J. Das Gupta, A. S. Vasudeva Murthy, Ravi S. Nanjundiah and C. V. Srinivas This work has been published in Springer GEM - International Journal on Geomathematics: Volume 4, Issue 1 (2013), Page 97-135 (DOI 10.1007/s13137-013-0047-8) Abstract A new linear model for the sea breeze circulation that includes Coriolis effect, crucial for the tropical region, and a non-zero background wind speed is derived from the mesoscale equations. Earlier studies of Rotunno [7] and Qian et al [6] considered these effects sepa- rately. These two models can be obtained as special cases from the proposed model. The basic set of equations are first non-dimensionalised and the solutions to this new system are obtained using Fourier transform followed by a judicious application of the Som- merfeld radiation condition. Unlike in earlier studies on this topic, solution for the wind velocity along the coast line is also obtained and is shown to vanish in the absence of the Coriolis effect. These solutions are then changed to their respective dimensional form to obtain the solutions for the proposed model. Boundedness of these solutions are established theoretically, something not pursued so far in the literature of sea breeze equations. These so- lutions are then studied quantitatively as functions of three physical parameters, viz. latitude, coastal width and the background wind speed. 1 Introduction The sea breeze circulation is an important atmospheric process having impact on various other atmospheric processes over coastal regions, like initiation and modulation of thunderstorms, fog and air pollution. It is a major atmospheric response to the differential heating and cooling between the land and the sea. Sea breeze is one of the oldest topics studied by the meteorologists throughout the world. Its mention in the literature could be found dating back to 17th century [2, Halley]. Over the last century, both observational and analytical studies have been done in this area. Though the study is pretty old, influence of the Earth’s rotation on sea breeze was not considered until 1947 [3, Haurwitz],[8, Schmidt]. For a survey see Miller et al [5]. It was Sun and Orlanski [11], who introduced the linear model, neglecting the variation in the vertical stratification of the atmosphere with time and the changes in the diffusivity with height [9, Simpson] to the study of sea breeze equation. Later on this idea was explored in great detail by Rotunno [7], also see [4], who investigated the linear theory for the sea breeze with an oscillating heat source in a resting background state. Qian et al [6] studied the sea breeze equation with a background wind. But they limited their study to the equatorial case only, thereby neglecting the Coriolis parameter. The present work follows the derivation of Qian et al by considering non-zero Coriolis pa- rameter as well. This enables the study of other latitudes as well. 1