Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability
The Southern Hemisphere winter stratosphere exhibits prominent traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves, which generally are not able to induce Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. A series of runs of a simplified general circulation model is presented, aimed at better understanding the generation of these...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Geophysical Union
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85926 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6716-1576 |
| _version_ | 1826193934475329536 |
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| author | Domeisen, Daniela I. V. Plumb, R. Alan |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Domeisen, Daniela I. V. Plumb, R. Alan |
| author_sort | Domeisen, Daniela I. V. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The Southern Hemisphere winter stratosphere exhibits prominent traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves, which generally are not able to induce Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. A series of runs of a simplified general circulation model is presented, aimed at better understanding the generation of these waves. While the generation of planetary-scale traveling waves through the interaction of synoptic-scale waves is observed in a control run, when the model is truncated to permit only waves with zonal wave number 1 or 2, the long waves are found to increase in strength, leading to a considerably more active stratosphere including Sudden Warmings comparable in strength to Northern Hemisphere winter. This finding suggests that the role of tropospheric synoptic eddies is two-fold: while generating a weak planetary-scale wave flux into the stratosphere, their main effect is to suppress baroclinic instability of planetary-scale waves by stabilizing the tropospheric mean state. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:47:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/85926 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:47:36Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | American Geophysical Union |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/859262022-09-30T16:50:58Z Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability Domeisen, Daniela I. V. Plumb, R. Alan Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Plumb, R. Alan The Southern Hemisphere winter stratosphere exhibits prominent traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves, which generally are not able to induce Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. A series of runs of a simplified general circulation model is presented, aimed at better understanding the generation of these waves. While the generation of planetary-scale traveling waves through the interaction of synoptic-scale waves is observed in a control run, when the model is truncated to permit only waves with zonal wave number 1 or 2, the long waves are found to increase in strength, leading to a considerably more active stratosphere including Sudden Warmings comparable in strength to Northern Hemisphere winter. This finding suggests that the role of tropospheric synoptic eddies is two-fold: while generating a weak planetary-scale wave flux into the stratosphere, their main effect is to suppress baroclinic instability of planetary-scale waves by stabilizing the tropospheric mean state. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant 0808831) 2014-03-27T15:55:55Z 2014-03-27T15:55:55Z 2012-10 2012-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 00948276 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85926 Domeisen, Daniela I. V., and R. Alan Plumb. “Traveling Planetary-Scale Rossby Waves in the Winter Stratosphere: The Role of Tropospheric Baroclinic Instability.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, no. 20 (October 28, 2012): n/a–n/a. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6716-1576 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2012GL053684 Geophysical Research Letters Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Geophysical Union Other univ. web domain |
| spellingShingle | Domeisen, Daniela I. V. Plumb, R. Alan Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| title | Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| title_full | Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| title_fullStr | Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| title_full_unstemmed | Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| title_short | Traveling planetary-scale Rossby waves in the winter stratosphere: The role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| title_sort | traveling planetary scale rossby waves in the winter stratosphere the role of tropospheric baroclinic instability |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/85926 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6716-1576 |
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