Bulk Flux Research Articles

Roles of SST Anomalies on the Wintertime Turbulent Heat Fluxes in the Kuroshio–Oyashio Confluence Region: Influences of Warm Eddies Detached from the Kuroshio Extension

Abstract Variations of turbulent heat fluxes (sum of sensible and latent heat fluxes) in the North Pacific during 16 winters from December 1992/February 1993 to December 2007/February 2008 are investigated because the months from December to February correspond to the period having peak winter conditions in the atmosphere field. Turbulent heat fluxes are calculated from the bulk formula using daily variables [surface wind speed, surface air specific humidity, surface air temperature, and sea surface temperature (SST)] of the objectively analyzed air–sea flux (OAFlux) dataset and bulk coefficients based on the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) bulk flux algorithm 3.0. The winter turbulent heat fluxes over the Kuroshio–Oyashio Confluence Region (KOCR; 142°–150°E, 35°–40°N) have the largest temporal variances in the North Pacific. The relative contributions among observed variables in SST, surface air temperature, and surface wind speed causing turbulent heat flux variations in the KOCR are assessed quantitatively by performing simple experiments using combinations of two types of variables: raw daily data and daily climatological data. Results show that SST is primarily responsible for the turbulent heat flux variations—a huge amount of heat is released in the state of the positive SST anomaly. Using the datasets of satellite-derived SST and sea surface height with high spatial and temporal resolutions, it is found that the SST anomalies in the KOCR are formed through activities of the anticyclonic (warm) eddies detached northward from the Kuroshio Extension; SSTs take positive (negative) anomalies when more (less) anticyclonic eddies are distributed there, associated with a more convoluted (straight) Kuroshio Extension path.

An extended rational thermodynamics model for surface excess fluxes

In this paper, we derive constitutive equations for the surface excess fluxes in multiphase systems, in the context of an extended rational thermodynamics formalism. This formalism allows us to derive Maxwell–Cattaneo type constitutive laws for the surface extra stress tensor, the surface thermal energy flux vector, and the surface mass flux vector, which incorporate a direct coupling to their corresponding bulk fluxes in the adjacent bulk phases. These constitutive laws also incorporate contributions to the time evolution of the surface excess fluxes from spatial inhomogeneities in these flux fields. These phenomenological equations can be used to model the dynamic behavior of complex viscoelastic interfaces in multiphase systems, in the small deformation limit.

Implementation of the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment flux algorithm with CO2, dimethyl sulfide, and O3

[1] Updates for the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) physically based meteorological and gas transfer bulk flux algorithms are examined. The current versions are summarized and a generalization of the gas transfer codes to 79 gases is described. The current meteorological version COARE3.0 was compared with a collection of 26,700 covariance observations of drag and heat transfer coefficients (compiled from three independent research groups). The algorithm agreed on average to within 5% with observations for a wind speed range of 2 to 18 m s−1. Covariance observations of CO2 and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) gas transfer velocity k were normalized to Schmidt number 660 and compared to an ensemble of gas flux observations from six research groups and nine field programs. A reasonable fit of the mean k660 versus U10n values was obtained for both CO2 and DMS with a new version of the COARE gas transfer algorithm (designated COAREG3.1) using friction velocity associated with viscous (tangential) stress, u*ν, in the nonbubble term. In the wind speed range 5 to 16 m s−1, tracer-derived estimates of k660 are 10% to 20% lower than the CO2 covariance estimates presented here.

Initiation and early development of barchan dunes: A case study of the Moroccan Atlantic Sahara desert

This paper describes field measurements that document the formation of barchan dunes in the Moroccan Atlantic Sahara desert. The first mechanism described is the transformation of patches and proto-dunes at Cap Juby beach to barchan dunes of elementary size. This transformation is discussed in relation to the wind speed and saturation length. The second mechanism is the ejection of small barchans of elementary size by other small barchans in response to the perturbation of the target barchan by two other impacting small barchans. This remote initiation is discussed in relation to the bulk flux transported by the barchan dunes involved in this interaction and to their morphology. Other modes of barchan initiation observed in the field are also presented.

High-Resolution Satellite Surface Latent Heat Fluxes in North Atlantic Hurricanes

This study presents a new high-resolution satellite-derived ocean surface flux product, XSeaFlux, which is evaluated for its potential use in hurricane studies. The XSeaFlux employs new satellite datasets using improved retrieval methods, and uses a new bulk flux algorithm formulated for high wind conditions. The XSeaFlux latent heat flux (LHF) performs much better than the existing numerical weather prediction reanalysis and satellite-derived flux products in a comparison with measurements from the Coupled Boundary Layer Air–Sea Transfer (CBLAST) field experiment. Also, the XSeaFlux shows well-organized LHF structure and large LHF values in response to hurricane conditions relative to the other flux products. The XSeaFlux dataset is used to interpret details of the ocean surface LHF for selected North Atlantic hurricanes. Analysis of the XSeaFlux dataset suggests that ocean waves, sea spray, and cold wake have substantial impacts on LHF associated with the hurricanes.

The Fallacy of Drifting Snow

A common parametrization over snow-covered surfaces that are undergoing saltation is that the aerodynamic roughness length for wind speed (z0) scales as \({\alpha u_\ast^2/g}\), where u* is the friction velocity, g is the acceleration of gravity, and α is an empirical constant. Data analyses seem to support this scaling: many published plots of z0 measured over snow demonstrate proportionality to \({u_\ast^2 }\). In fact, I show similar plots here that are based on two large eddy-covariance datasets: one collected over snow-covered Arctic sea ice; another collected over snow-covered Antarctic sea ice. But in these and in most such plots from the literature, the independent variable, u*, was used to compute z0 in the first place; the plots thus suffer from fictitious correlation that causes z0 to unavoidably increase with u* without any intervening physics. For these two datasets, when I plot z0 against u* derived from a bulk flux algorithm—and thus minimize the fictitious correlation—z0 is independent of u* in the drifting snow region, u* ≥ 0.30 ms−1. I conclude that the relation \({z_0 = \alpha u_\ast^2/g}\) when snow is drifting is a fallacy fostered by analyses that suffer from fictitious correlation.

Turbulent fluxes and transfer of trace gases from ship-based measurements during TexAQS 2006

[1] Air-sea/land turbulent fluxes of momentum, sensible heat, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and ozone are discussed on the basis of eddy covariance measurements made aboard the NOAA R/V Ronald H. Brown during the Texas Air Quality Study (TexAQS) in August–September 2006. The TexAQS 2006 field campaign focused on air pollution meteorology associated primarily with ozone and aerosol transport in the Houston/Galveston region and the nearby coastal zone. The ship-based complement of instrumentation was used for the boundary layer measurements over water (the Gulf of Mexico and various harbors/bay areas) and “over land” (specifically, 80 km inside the Houston Ship Channel). In this study we focus on direct comparisons of TexAQS 2006 flux observations with the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) bulk flux algorithm to investigate possible coastal and urban area influences. It is found that the average neutral drag coefficient can be about an order of magnitude larger over very rough urban areas than over the sea surface. However, a similar effect was not observed for the scalar transfer; that is, the neutral Stanton and Dalton numbers do not change significantly over different footprint surfaces. Our data suggest that the TexAQS 2006 region was generally a sink for surface ozone whether over water or over land. The turbulent flux of carbon dioxide was mostly negative (uptake by the surface) for measurements over waters of the Gulf of Mexico and some bays, but the flux becomes positive (release to the air) for inland regions. Both ozone and carbon dioxide turbulent fluxes above land were larger in magnitude compared to the over water measurements.

A relationship between the aerodynamic and physical roughness of winter sea ice

AbstractA bulk flux algorithm predicts the turbulent surface fluxes of momentum and sensible and latent heat from mean measured or modelled meteorological variables. The bulk flux algorithm resulting from data collected over winter sea ice during SHEBA, the experiment to study the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean, failed, however, in its first trial to predict the turbulent momentum flux over sea ice in the Antarctic. This result suggests that the main parameter for predicting the momentum flux, the aerodynamics roughness length z0, does not respond just to the friction velocity, as in the SHEBA algorithm, but is closely related to the physical roughness of snow‐covered sea ice and may need to be site‐specific. I investigate this idea with simultaneous measurements of z0 and the physical roughness of the surface, ξ, at Ice Station Weddell. The metric ξ derives from surveys of surface elevation and is related to but always less than the standard deviation in surface elevation. On combining the z0–ξ pairs from Ice Station Weddell with similar data obtained over Arctic sea ice, I show that the Arctic and Antarctic z0–ξ data lie along a continuum such that measuring ξ could provide a means for estimating a site‐specific z0 for any global sea ice surface. Backscatter data from satellite‐borne synthetic aperture radar might provide a remotely sensed estimate of ξ. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

Air–Sea Interaction in the Ligurian Sea: Assessment of a Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Model Using In Situ Data from LASIE07

Abstract In situ experimental data and numerical model results are presented for the Ligurian Sea in the northwestern Mediterranean. The Ligurian Sea Air–Sea Interaction Experiment (LASIE07) and LIGURE2007 experiments took place in June 2007. The LASIE07 and LIGURE2007 data are used to validate the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS)1 developed at the Naval Research Laboratory. This system includes an atmospheric sigma coordinate, nonhydrostatic model, coupled to a hydrostatic sigma-z-level ocean model (Navy Coastal Ocean Model), using the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF). A month-long simulation, which includes data assimilation in the atmosphere and full coupling, is compared against an uncoupled run where analysis SST is used for computation of the bulk fluxes. This reveals that COAMPS has reasonable skill in predicting the wind stress and surface heat fluxes at LASIE07 mooring locations in shallow and deep water. At the LASIE07 coastal site (but not at the deep site) the validation shows that the coupled model has a much smaller bias in latent heat flux, because of improvements in the SST field relative to the uncoupled model. This in turn leads to large differences in upper-ocean temperature between the coupled model and an uncoupled ocean model run.

Bulk axions, brane back-reaction and fluxes

Extra-dimensional models can involve bulk pseudo-Goldstone bosons (pGBs) whose shift symmetry is explicitly broken only by physics localized on branes. Reliable calculation of their low-energy potential is often difficult because it requires an understanding of the dynamics that stabilizes the geometry of the extra dimensions. Rugby ball solutions provide simple examples of extra-dimensional configurations for which two compact extra dimensions are stabilized in the presence of only positive-tension brane sources. The effects of brane back-reaction can be computed explicitly for these systems, allowing the calculation of the shape of the low-energy pGB potential, V 4D (φ), as a function of the perturbing brane properties, as well as the response of both the extra dimensional and on-brane geometries to this stabilization. If the φ-dependence is a small part of the total brane tension a very general analysis is possible, permitting an exploration of how the system responds to frustration when the two branes disagree on what the proper scalar vacuum should be. We show how the low-energy potential is given by the sum of brane tensions (in agreement with common lore) when only the brane tensions couple to φ. We also show how a direct brane coupling to the flux stabilizing the extra dimensions corrects this result in a way that does not simply amount to the contribution of the flux to the brane tensions. The mass of the low-energy pseudo-Goldstone mode is of order m a ∼ (μ/F)2 m KK (where μ is the energy scale associated with the brane symmetry breaking and F < M p is the extra-dimensional axion decay constant). In principle this can be larger or smaller than the Kaluza-Klein scale, m KK, but when it is larger axion properties cannot be computed purely within a 4D approximation (as they usually are). We briefly describe several potential applications, including a brane realization of ‘natural inflation,’ and a dynamical mechanism for suppressing the couplings of the pGB to matter localized on the branes. Since the scalar can be light enough to be relevant to precision tests of gravity (in a technically natural way) this mechanism can be relevant to evading phenomenological bounds.

Aircraft Observations of Sea-Surface Turbulent Fluxes Near the California Coast

Aircraft turbulence data from the Autonomous Ocean Sampling Network project were analyzed and compared to the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) bulk parametrization of turbulent fluxes in an ocean area near the coast of California characterized by complex atmospheric flow. Turbulent fluxes measured at about 35 m above the sea surface using the eddy-correlation method were lower than bulk estimates under unstable and stable atmospheric stratification for all but light winds. Neutral turbulent transfer coefficients were used in this comparison because they remove the effects of mean atmospheric conditions and atmospheric stability. Spectral analysis suggested that kilometre-scale longitudinal rolls affect significantly turbulence measurements even near the sea surface, depending on sampling direction. Cross-wind sampling tended to capture all the available turbulent energy. Vertical soundings showed low boundary-layer depths and high flux divergence near the sea surface in the case of sensible heat flux but minimal flux divergence for the momentum flux. Cross-wind sampling and flux divergence were found to explain most of the observed discrepancies between the measured and bulk flux estimates. At low wind speeds the drag coefficient determined with eddy correlation and an inertial dissipation method after corrections were applied still showed high values compared to bulk estimates. This discrepancy correlated with the dominance of sea swell, which was a usually observed condition under low wind speeds. Under stable atmospheric conditions measured sensible heat fluxes, which usually have low values over the ocean, were possibly affected by measurement errors and deviated significantly from bulk estimates.

Numerical Experiments on Strong Vertical Mixing under Strong Winds in the Coastal Zone

There are several bulk flux models for an ocean surface boundary layer, such as surface roughness and TKE fluxes at the ocean surface. However, these bulk flux models have not been calibrated in detail.The validation for the parameterization of bulk flux models is carried out analyzing correlation of temperature and velocity vertical distributions between numerical results and observed data. The numerical experiments were conducted during the Typhoon Melor in 2009 at Tanabe Bay, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. It was found that the parameterization for the TKE flux has significant influences on temperature and velocity in the nearshore region.

Quantification of lateral heterogeneity in carbohydrate permeability of isolated plant leaf cuticles

In phyllosphere microbiology, the distribution of resources available to bacterial colonizers of leaf surfaces is generally understood to be very heterogeneous. However, there is little quantitative understanding of the mechanisms that underlie this heterogeneity. Here, we tested the hypothesis that different parts of the cuticle vary in the degree to which they allow diffusion of the leaf sugar fructose to the surface. To this end, individual, isolated cuticles of poplar leaves were each analyzed for two properties: (1) the permeability for fructose, which involved measurement of diffused fructose by gas chromatography and flame ionization detection (GC–FID), and (2) the number and size of fructose-permeable sites on the cuticle, which was achieved using a green-fluorescent protein (GFP)-based bacterial bioreporter for fructose. Bulk flux measurements revealed an average permeance P of 3.39 × 10−9 ms−1, while the bioreporter showed that most of the leaching fructose was clustered to sites around the base of shed trichomes, which accounted for only 0.37% of the surface of the cuticles under study. Combined, the GC–FID and GFP measurements allowed us to calculate an apparent rate of fructose diffusion at these preferential leaching sites of 9.15 × 10−7 ms−1. To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first successful attempt to quantify cuticle permeability at a resolution that is most relevant to bacterial colonizers of plant leaves. The estimates for P at different spatial scales will be useful for future models that aim to explain and predict temporal and spatial patterns of bacterial colonization of plant foliage based on lateral heterogeneity in sugar permeability of the leaf cuticle.

A parameterization of Greenland's tip jets suitable for ocean or coupled climate models

Greenland's tip jets are low‐level, high wind speed jets forced by an interaction of the synoptic‐scale atmospheric flow and the steep, high orography of Greenland. These jets are thought to play an important role in both preconditioning for, and triggering of, open‐ocean convection in the Irminger Sea. However, the relatively small spatial scale of the jets prevents their accurate representation in the relatively low resolution (∼1 degree) atmospheric (re‐)analyses which are typically used to force ocean general circulation models (e.g. ECMWF ERA‐40 and NCEP reanalyses, or products based on these). Here we present a method of ‘bogussing’ Greenland's tip jets into such surface wind fields and thus, via bulk flux formulae, into the air‐sea turbulent flux fields. In this way the full impact of these mesoscale tip jets can be incorporated in any ocean general circulation model of sufficient resolution. The tip jet parameterization is relatively simple, making use of observed linear gradients in wind speed along and across the jet, but is shown to be accurate to a few m s−1 on average. The inclusion of tip jets results in a large local increase in both the heat and momentum fluxes. When applied to a 1‐dimensional mixed‐layer model this results in a deepening of the winter mixed‐layer of over 300 m. The parameterization scheme only requires 10 meter wind speed and mean sea level pressure as input fields; thus it is also suitable for incorporation into a coupled atmosphere‐ocean climate model at the coupling stage.

Parametrizing turbulent exchange over summer sea ice and the marginal ice zone

The surface of the Arctic Ocean in summer is a mix of sea ice and water in both leads and melt ponds. Here we use data collected at multiple sites during the year-long experiment to study the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) to develop a bulk turbulent flux algorithm for predicting the surface fluxes of momentum and sensible and latent heat over the Arctic Ocean during summer from readily measured or modelled quantities. The distinctive aerodynamic feature of summer sea ice is that the leads and melt ponds create vertical ice faces that the wind can push against; momentum transfer to the surface is thus enhanced through form drag. In effect, summer sea ice behaves aerodynamically like the marginal ice zone, which is another surface that consists of sea ice and water. In our bulk flux algorithm, we therefore combine our SHEBA measurements of the neutral-stability drag coefficient at a reference height of 10 m, CDN10, with similar measurements from marginal ice zones that have been reported in the literature to create a unified parametrization for CDN10 for summer sea ice and for any marginal ice zone. This parametrization predicts CDN10 from a second-order polynomial in ice concentration. Our bulk flux algorithm also includes expressions for the roughness lengths for temperature and humidity, introduces new profile stratification corrections for stable stratification, and effectively eliminates the singularities that often occur in iterative flux algorithms for very light winds. In summary, this new algorithm seems capable of estimating the friction velocity u∗ (a surrogate for the momentum flux) over summer sea ice with an absolute accuracy of 0.02 –0.03 m s −1 ; the sensible heat flux, with an accuracy of about 6 W m −2 ; and the latent heat flux, with an accuracy of 3.5 W m −2 .C opyright c � 2010 Royal Meteorological Society

Parameterizing Turbulent Exchange over Sea Ice in Winter

Abstract The Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) experiment produced 18 000 h of turbulence data from the atmospheric surface layer over sea ice while the ice camp drifted for a year in the Beaufort Gyre. Multiple sites instrumented during SHEBA suggest only two aerodynamic seasons over sea ice. In “winter” (October 1997 through 14 May 1998 and 15 September 1998 through the end of the SHEBA deployment in early October 1998), the ice was compact and snow covered, and the snow was dry enough to drift and blow. In “summer” (15 May through 14 September 1998 in this dataset), the snow melted, and melt ponds and leads appeared and covered as much as 40% of the surface with open water. This paper develops a bulk turbulent flux algorithm to explain the winter data. This algorithm predicts the surface fluxes of momentum, and sensible and latent heat from more readily measured or modeled quantities. A main result of the analysis is that the roughness length for wind speed z0 does not depend on the friction velocity u* in the drifting snow regime (u* ≥ 0.30 m s−1) but, rather, is constant in the SHEBA dataset at about 2.3 × 10−4 m. Previous analyses that found z0 to increase with u* during drifting snow may have suffered from fictitious correlation because u* also appears in z0. The present analysis mitigates this fictitious correlation by plotting measured z0 against the corresponding u* computed from the bulk flux algorithm. Such plots, created with data from six different SHEBA sites, show z0 to be independent of the bulk u* for 0.15 &amp;lt; u* ≤ 0.65 m s−1. This study also evaluates the roughness lengths for temperature zT and humidity zQ, incorporates new profile stratification corrections for stable stratification, addresses the singularities that often occur in iterative flux algorithms in very light winds, and includes an extensive analysis of whether atmospheric stratification affects z0, zT, and zQ.

Climate simulations with a new air‐sea turbulent flux parameterization in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model (CAM3)

This study examines climate simulations with the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Atmosphere Model version 3 (NCAR CAM3) using a new air‐sea turbulent flux parameterization scheme. The current air‐sea turbulent flux scheme in CAM3 consists of three basic bulk flux equations that are solved simultaneously by an iterative computational technique. We recently developed a new turbulent flux parameterization scheme where the Obukhov stability length is parameterized directly by using a bulk Richardson number, an aerodynamic roughness length, and a heat roughness length. Its advantages are that it (1) avoids the iterative process and thus increases the computational efficiency, (2) takes account of the difference between z0m and z0h and allows large z0m/z0h, and (3) preserves the accuracy of iteration. An offline test using Tropical Ocean–Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean‐Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) data shows that the original scheme overestimates the surface fluxes under very weak winds but the new scheme gives better results. Under identical initial and boundary conditions, the original CAM3 and CAM3 coupled with the new turbulent flux scheme are used to simulate the global distribution of air‐sea surface turbulent fluxes, and precipitation. Comparisons of model outputs against the European Remote Sensing Satellites (ERS), the Objectively Analyzed air‐sea Fluxes (OAFlux), and Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) show that: (1) the new scheme produces more realistic surface wind stress in the North Pacific and North Atlantic trade wind belts and wintertime extratropical storm track regions; (2) the latent heat flux in the Northern Hemisphere trade wind zones shows modest improvement in the new scheme, and the latent heat flux bias in the western boundary current region of the Gulf Stream is reduced; and (3) the simulated precipitation in the new scheme is closer to observation in the Asian monsoon region.

Palaeoflow reconstruction from fan delta morphology on Mars

Alluvial fans and deltas on Mars record past hydrological conditions. Until now these conditions have been inferred from the morphology of the feeder channels and the deposits from images and digital terrain models (DTMs), and from calculations of the bulk fluxes of water and sediment based on the dimensions of upstream channels. Neither method can distinguish between dilute (river-like) flows and dense (sediment-laden) flows, however, while the formation time scales for these two sediment transport modes differ by orders of magnitude. The objective of this paper is to compare DTM data quantitatively with a morphological model to infer sediment transport mode and formative duration. We present a quantitative morphological model for fan and delta formation that assumes as little as possible. The model calculates the growth of a sedimentary body in a crater lake, represented by a low-gradient, subaerial cone on top of a high-gradient, subaqueous cone. The volume of the cone is constrained by the influx of sediment while the elevation of the break in slope, that is, the shoreline, is constrained by the influx of water. The water and sediment fluxes were calculated with physics-based predictors based on the feeder channel. Small-scale morphology, such as crater wall irregularities, concavity of the fan surface and channel avulsion, is ignored. The model produces alluvial fans, stair-stepped fan deltas and Gilbert fan deltas as well as hitherto unidentified crater wall drapes. The parameters that determine which morphology emerges are the supply of sediment and water to the basin, the size of the basin and the duration of the flow. A direct comparison between the cone model and HRSC DTM data for five deltas and an alluvial fan demonstrates that single-event dilute flows of short duration (days to years) have created all of the deposits. Two Gilbert fan deltas were formed in overspilling crater lakes from long low-gradient upstream channels. One alluvial fan was formed in a similar manner except that the damaged crater did not lead to ponding. Three stair-stepped deltas were formed from short high-gradient upstream channels that only partially filled the crater lakes.

Surfactant-Enhanced Rapid Spreading of Drops on Solid Surfaces

We study the surfactant-enhanced spreading of drops on the surfaces of solid substrates. This work is performed in connection with the unique ability of aqueous trisiloxane solutions to wet highly hydrophobic substrates effectively, which has been studied for nearly two decades. We couple a lubrication model to advection-diffusion equations for surfactant transport. We allow for micelle formation and breakup in the bulk and adsorptive flux at both the gas-liquid and liquid-solid interfaces and use appropriate equations of state to model variations in surface tension and wettability. Our numerical results show the effect of basal adsorption, kinetic rates, and the availability of surfactant on the deformation of the droplet and its spreading rate. We demonstrate that this rate is maximized for intermediate rates of basal adsorption and the total mass of surfactant.

Towards a warped inflationary brane scanning

We present a detailed systematics for comparing warped brane inflation with the observations, incorporating the effects of both moduli stabilization and ultraviolet bulk physics. We explicitly construct an example of the inflaton potential governing the motion of a mobile D3 brane in the entire warped deformed conifold. This allows us to precisely identify the corresponding scales of the cosmic microwave background. The effects due to bulk fluxes or localized sources are parametrized using gauge/string duality. We next perform some sample scannings to explore the parameter space of the complete potential, and first demonstrate that without the bulk effects there can be large degenerate sets of parameters with observationally consistent predictions. When the bulk perturbations are included, however, the observational predictions are generally spoiled. For them to remain consistent, the magnitudes of the additional bulk effects need to be highly suppressed.