- Director's Message
- Table of Contents
- Strategic Goals: Science, Facilities & Technology
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Strategic Goal #1, Strategic Priority #1:
Exploring atmospheric, Earth System, and solar processes, variability, and change -
Strategic Goal #1, Strategic Priority #2:
Investigating the interaction of the atmosphere, the broader Earth system, and human society -
Strategic Goal #1, Strategic Priority #3:
Improving prediction of weather, climate, and other atmospheric phenomena -
Strategic Goal #1, Strategic Priority #4:
Developing community models -
Strategic Goal #5, Strategic Priority #1:
Enabling innovative field experiments and measurement campaigns -
Strategic Goal #5, Strategic Priority #2:
Developing new instrumentation
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Strategic Goal #1, Strategic Priority #1:
- Research Catalog
CGD's Dr. Roland Madden
Madden, R. A., 2007: Large-Scale, Free Rossby Waves in the Atmosphere, an Update, Tellus A, In press.
Figure 1.
High resolution figure
Abstract
The existence of free, or normal mode Rossby waves has been known for 50 years. Studies have indicated that they can affect the large-scale flow in important ways; nevertheless there has been little written on them during the last decade. Here, evidence of their presence in a 40-year record of NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data is presented. It provides a starting point from which other published observations based on varying data sets are summarized. In addition, literature pointing to their possible effects is summarized. This update is submitted in the hopes that it will reinvigorate interest that can increase our understanding of variations in the large-scales.
Figure caption: Solid curved lines are the Hough function depictions of the latitudinal structure of stream function for the s, l-s mode in an atmosphere with an equivalent depth of 10 km like those of Fig. 1 (after Kasahara, 1976). Each row is for a different zonal wave number s, and each column is for a different meridional index, l - s. Dashed lines are the latitudinal profiles determined from selected CEOFs. The CEOF number is indicated in the upper left of each panel with the number 1 meaning the CEOF that explains most of the variance. The percent variance explained by a CEOF is printed just below the CEOF number.
Support: NSF.