Hemispheric simulation of the Asian summer monsoon

A three-level, -plane, filtered model is used to simulate the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon. A time-averaged initial state, devoid of sub-planetary scale waves, is integrated through 30 days on a 5° latitude-longitude grid. Day 25 through day 30 integrations are then repeated on a 2.5° grid. The planetary-scale waves are forced by time-independent, spatially varying diabatic heating. Energy is extracted via internal and surface frictional processes. Orography is excluded to simplify synoptic-scale energy sources.During integration the model energy first increases, but stabilizes near day 10. Subsequent flow patterns closely resemble the hemisphere summer monsoon. Climatological features remain quasi-stationary. At 200 mb high pressure dominates the land area, large-scale troughs are found over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the easterly jet forms south of Asia, and subtropical jets develop in the westerlies. At 800 mb subtropical highs dominate the oceans and the monsoon trough develops over the Asian land mass. The planetary scales at all levels develop a realistic cellular structure from the passage of transient synoptic-scale features, e.g., a baroclinic cyclone track develops near 55°N and westward propagating waves form in the easterlies.Barotropic redistribution of kinetic energy is examined over a low-latitude zonal strip using a Fourier wave-space. In contrast to higher latitudes where the zonal flow and both longer and shorter waves are fed by barotropic energy redistribution from the baroclinically unstable wavelengths, the low-latitude waves have a planetary-scale kinetic energy source. Wave numbers 1 and 2 maintain both the zonal flow and all shorter scales via barotropic transfers. Transient and standing wave processes are examined individually and in combination.Wave energy accumulates at wave numbers 7 and 8 at 200 mb and at wave number 11 in the lower troposphere. The 800-mb waves are thermally indirect and in the mean they give energy to the zonal flow. These characteristics agree with atmospheric observation. The energy source for these waves is the three wave barotropic transfer. The implications of examining barotropic processes in a Fourier wave-space, vice the more common approach of separating the flow into a mean plus a deviation are discussed.     

Meridional transport of sensible heat in contrasting monsoon activity: Spherical harmonic analysis

Spherical harmonic analysis is made of the grid point values of geopotential heights at 700 mb and 300 mb levels for the months April to August for the years 1967 and 1972. The year 1967 is a good monsoon year and 1972 is a bad monsoon year in India. Meridional transport of sensible heat is obtained in wave number domain using spherical harmonic coefficients at 500 mb level form=1 to 10 andn–m=0 to 10, wherem represents the wave number round the globe andn–m gives the numbers of zero points from north pole to south pole excluding the poles themselves.Large northward transports of sensible heat in the month of May and in the monsoon months at the subtropics are characteristic of bad monsoon. Wave 1 transports sensible heat southward (forn–m=0) and wave 2 transports sensible heat northward (forn–m=4). Strengthening of wave 1 is conducive to good monsoon year and strengthening of wave 2 is conducive to bad monsoon year. These are the same features obtained in Fourier analysis. The contrasting features exist in waves 1 and 2 both in good and in bad monsoon and are better defined in the present analysis than in the Fourier analysis of the earlier study. However, waves 1 and 2 reveal clearer contrast in the present analysis than in the Fourier analysis. Bad monsoon activity is associated with large divergence of heart at subtropics and large convergence of heat at extra tropics.     

Barotropic-Baroclinic instability of mean zonal wind during summer monsoon

Barotropic-Baroclinic instability of horizontally and vertically shearing mean monsoon flow during July is investigated numerically by using a 10-layer quasi-geostrophic model. The most unstable mode has a wavelength of about 3000 km and westward phase speed of about 15 m sec^–1. The most dominant energy conversion is from zonal kinetic energy to eddy kinetic energy. The structure of the most unstable mode is such that the maximum amplitude is concentrated at about 150 mb and the amplitude at the lowest layers is negligibly small. Barotropic instability of the zonal flow at 150 mb seems to be the primary excitation mechanism for the most unstable mode which is also similar to the observed westward propagating waves in the upper troposphere during the monsoon season. The results further suggest that Barotropic-Baroclinic instability of the mean monsoon flow cannot explain the occurrence of monsoon depressions which have their maximum amplitude at the lower levels and are rarely detected at 200 mb.     

Baroclinic energetics and zonal plane distribution of monsoon disturbances

The adiabatic, quasi-geostraphic, 25-layer, numerical, linear model with Ekman boundary layer friction is utilised to perform the baroclinic stability analysis of the mean monsoon zonal wind profile. It is shown thec _i is a function of the resultant wavenumber alone. This relation is able to explain the effects of the lateral walls on the unstable waves.The energetics and zonal plane distribution of the short and long preferred viscous waves are computed. The upward motion of the short wave together with the warm (cold) core lies to the west of the surface trough position above (below) 850 mb. Further, it is shown that the main source of kinetic energy for the wave lies in the middle layer (850–700 mb) which is transported to the lower and upper layers. Computed is found to be in good agreement with observed values.     

Variations in zonal mean and planetary wave properties of the stratosphere and links with the troposphere

Zonal mean data and amplitudes and phases of planetary zonal waves were derived from daily hemispheric maps for tropospheric and stratospheric levels, for the four winters 1975–76 to 1978–79. Important year-to-year fluctuation in zonal means and wave activity are described, most notable of which are the changes from 1975–76 to 1976–77. Comparison of the relative strengths of the stratospheric and tropospheric jet streams shows a strong negative correlation (–0.8) between monthly mean zonal stratospheric winds (at 10 mb, 65°N) and zonal tropospheric winds (at 200 mb, 32.5°N, in the jet core) and a positive correlation (+0.7) between the stratospheric 10 mb winds and the tropospheric 200 mb winds at 65°N. Parameters correlated were the departures from the climatological mean zonal winds. The structure of correlation between wave amplitudes in the same wave number (1, 2) at different altitudes and between wave numbers 1 and 2 is investigated. We find a high correlation (+0.93) between wave 1 in the stratosphere (10 mb height) and wave 2 (height) in the troposphere at 65°N; but only a weak correlation (+0.2) between wave 1 amplitudes in the stratosphere and troposphere. These results suggest the possible importance of wave-wave interactions in processes linking the stratosphere and troposphere. The wave correlations presented here are based on comparisons of monthly means of daily amplitudes; the correlation structure in individual wave developments may differ, in view of the likelihood of altitudinal lags in wave amplification.     

Large scale vertical eddies in the atmosphere and the energy of the mean zonal flow

Summary The zonal eddy stress across horizontal surfaces due to large scale vertical motions was evaluated for two months from data for the northern hemisphere for a number of levels up to 50 mb. From this information and from the corresponding distributions for each of the two months of the mean zonal winds, the rate of transformation of kinetic energy from eddy to mean zonal form was calculated. The two sets of data gave rather small values for the hemisphere which were of opposite sign.     

Generation of zonal flow by resonant Rossby-Haurwitz wave interactions

Starting out with two interacting Rossby-Haurwitz waves, the generation of zonal flow is discussed. It is shown that zonal flow cannot be generated by first or second order interactions between two such waves, unless they are exchanging energy with a third wave within a resonant triad. The generation of zonal flow at second order through resonant triad interactions is subsequently established and studied.     

Monsoonal quasi-stationary ultralong waves of the tropical troposphere predicted by a real data prediction over a global tropical belt

The mechanisms of the maintenance of the tropical upper tropospheric quasi-stationary ultralong waves during the northern hemisphere summer season are briefly reviewed and discussed. Diagnostic and prognostic studies indicate that the waves are maintained by the land-ocean contrast heating. These scales of motion as a whole (sum of the zonal wavenumbers 1, 2 and 3) are considered to supply kinetic energy to all other scales of motion.The ultralong waves predicted in the real data numerical prediction experiment over the global tropics using a multi-level primitive equation model are examined and compared with the observed climatological waves. The predicted waves are found to have several similarities with the observations. Further investigations of the baroclinic nature of the waves indicate that their thermal structure is essential for understanding their dynamics.The vorticity budget computations are performed for the predicted ultralong waves at 200 mb and also compared with the climatological observations. It is found that the advection term is one of the leading terms in the vorticity equation.This study indicates that the tropical quasi-stationary ultralong waves are fully nonlinear, non-geostrophic, three-dimensional waves forced mainly by the convective heating over the monsoon Indian subcontient.     

水平非均匀基流中行星波的传播

行星波传播理论虽然已有很多研究,但是大多以纬向对称基流为主,无法解释东西风带之间相互作用的事实.鉴于此,本文从理论上系统讨论了纬向对称和水平非均匀基流中定常和非定常波动的传播特征.首先,对纬向对称基流中波动传播的周期特征进行分析后发现,西风中位相东传超长波周期大于30 d,而东风中位相西传超长波的周期则小于30 d.之后,从传播的空间以及周期特征等方面系统研究了水平非均匀基流中球面波动传播理论,得到以下结论:经向基流使得定常波可以穿越东风带,在南北两半球间传播,为东西风带之间的相互作用提供了理论解释;强的经向流使得波动传播具有单向性;亚澳季风区低层纬向1波呈低频特征.     

Can zonally symmetric inertial waves drive an oscillating zonal mean flow?

In the present paper zonal mean flow excitation by inertial waves is studied in analogy to mean flow excitation by gravity waves that plays an important role for the quasi-biennial oscillation in the equatorial atmosphere. In geophysical flows that are stratified and rotating, pure gravity and inertial waves correspond to the two limiting cases: gravity waves neglect rotation, inertial waves neglect stratification. The former are more relevant for fluids like the atmosphere, where stratification is dominant, the latter for the deep oceans or planet cores, where rotation dominates. In the present study a hierarchy of simple analytical and numerical models of zonally symmetric inertial wave-mean flow interactions is considered and the results are compared with data from a laboratory experiment. The main findings can be summarised as follows: (i) when the waves are decoupled from the mean flow they just drive a retrograde (eastward) zonal mean flow, independent of the sign of the meridional phase speed; (ii) when coupling is present and the zonal mean flow is assumed to be steady, the waves can drive vertically alternating jets, but still, in contrast to the gravity wave case, the structure is independent of the sign of the meridional phase speed; (iii) when coupling is present and time-dependent zonal mean flows are considered the waves can drive vertically and temporarily oscillating mean flows. The comparison with laboratory data from a rotating annulus experiment shows a qualitative agreement. It appears that the experiment captures the basic elements of the inertial wave mean flow coupling. The results might be relevant to understand how the Equatorial Deep Jets can be maintained against dissipation, a process currently discussed controversially.     

Role of barotropic mechanism in the development of a monsoon depression: A MONEX study

The role of barotropic processes in the development of a monsoon depression, formed on 5 July 1979 during MONEX observational period, is studied by considering it as a quasi-geostrophic divergent barotropic instability problem of zonal flow of 3 July 1979 at 700 mb level. Numerical solutions are obtained by initial value approach. The preferred wave has a wavelength of 2750 km, an e-folding time of 4.3 days, a period of 6.5 days and an eastward phase speed of 4.9 ms^–1. Structure of preferred wave is found to be in good agreement with the observed horizontal structure of the depression at 700 mb. Poleward momentum transports are found to predominate over equatorward transports.Parts of this paper were presented at the National Symposium on Early Results of MONEX-1979. 9–12 March 1981, in New Delhi, India.     

Acceleration of mean zonal flows by planetary waves

The mechanism of acceleration of the mean zonal flow by a planetary wave is explained intuitively by considering the wave drag which a corrugated bottom feels when it excites the wave. The explanation is justified by solving the problem of vertical propagation of a planetary wave packet and the second order mean motion induced around it. The discussion is slightly extended to the case of small damping, to illustrate in a compact form the fact that the mean zonal acceleration is determined by a forcing due to wave transience plus that due to wave dissipation.The mean flow induced by a steady, dissipating planetary wave is discussed, and it is shown that it depends largely on the dissipation scale-height of the wave whether the northern region is heated or cooled. For example, if the wave velocity-amplitude increases upward in spite of dissipation, the induced easterly flow increases with height and the temperature of the northern region increases relative to that in the southern region. A similar point has been made byDunkerton (1979) in connection with westerly flows induced by Kelvin waves.The Lagrangian-mean motion induced by a planetary wave is briefly discussed in connection with the mechanism of acceleration of the mean zonal flow, in the case of a slowly varying wave packet. Further, in order el elucidate the effects of wave dissipation and time dependence of wave amplitude, the results obtained for a steady, dissipating wave and for a growing baroclinic wave are mentioned.     

On the role of the Asian monsoon in the angular momentum and kinetic energy balances of the tropics

The balance conditions of relative angular momentum and time-mean kinetic energy and their annual variations are studied for the Northern Hemisphere tropical belt. The belt is divided into two roughly equal size parts, the monsoon and the extramonsoon regions. The data used consist of all available daily rawinsonde reports from the world areological network for the two 5-year periods 1958–63 and 1968–73.In winter, the trade winds in the monsoon and extramonsoon regions are both sources of westerly relative angular momentum for the middle latitude circulation. However, it is found that the angular momentum gained in the extramonsoon region of the Tropics is mostly destroyed by a net southward flow of mass in that region, and becomes regenerated in the monsoon region by a net northward flow of mass there. This excess of angular momentum together with the angular momentum picked up locally in the monsoon region is almost all exported across its northern boundary. It is further found that in winter the Tropics are also an important source of mean kinetic energy for middle latitudes. Again almost all export of kinetic energy was found to take place across the northern boundary of the monsoon sector. Most of this energy must be generated through the pressure gradient term inside the monsoon region itself, the transformation from transient eddy kinetic energy being very small. The proper evaluation of the pressure gradient appears to be the main stumbling block in the present study, preventing us from estimating the generation and thereby, as a residual, the frictional dissipation in the two regions.In summer, the extramonsoon region remains a source of angular momentum, but the monsoon region with its surface westerlies acts as a sink, leading to a sharp reduction (and even a midsummer reversal) of the export into middle latitudes. Also the export of mean kinetic energy almost vanishes in summer, except for a small southward transfer across the equator. The calculations for two 5-year periods give very similar estimates and thereby show the reliability of the results.Parts of this paper were presented at the International Symposium on Monsoons, March 7–12, 1977 in New Delhi, India.     

Preconditioning and ozone hole filling in the Antarctic Spring

The temporal variations in mean zonal wind, horizontal temperature gradient at 30 mb and Total Ozone in Antarctic Spring (1 Sept.–30 Nov.) for nine seasons (1979–1987) were examined. The ozone hole filling commenced when the zonal flow decelerated to 50–58 m.sec^–1 at 30 mb. Our calculation of Rossby critical wave number with vertical shear suited for Antarctic Spring indicated that flow is preconditioned for vertical propagation of Rossby critical wave number two at this range of zonal flow. This preconditioning can be attributed to the diabatic heating in the Antarctic Spring since no sudden minor warmings/coolings have occurred during the period.     

Major and minor stratospheric warmings and their interactions on the troposphere

Analyses of evolutions of the kinetic and thermal energy associated with the major and minor stratospheric warmings in the winters of 1976–77 and 1975–76 respectively indicate that the predominant ultra-long waves in the stratosphere oscillated at periods of 10–20 days, whereas in the troposphere the predominant long waves oscillated at periods of 8 to 12 days. These tropospheric long waves are almost out-of-phase with the stratospheric ultra-long waves for the minor warming, but in-phase for the major warming. The kinetic energy of the zonal mean flow in the stratosphere for the minor warming is much greater than that for the major warming, indicating that the occurrence of a major warming depends on the magnitude of the kinetic energy of the zonal mean flow relative to that of the meridional convergence of the poleward flux of sensible heat. In both the major and minor warmings, most of the stratospheric eddy kinetic energy is contained in waves of wavenumbers 1 and 2, whereas the stratospheric available potential energy is primarily contained in waves of wavenumber 1. The kinetic energy associated with waves of wavenumber 1 appeared to be 180° out-of-phase with those of wavenumber 2, indicating that nonlinear transfer of kinetic energy occurred between waves of wavenumbers 1 and 2. The occurrences of wind reversals were accompanied by decouplings of the stratospheric and tropospheric motions, and blockings in the troposphere.     

The Energetics of Asian Summer Monsoon

—?In this paper, we examine the large-scale balances of kinetic energy, vorticity, angular momentum, heat and moisture over the Asian summer monsoon region. The five year (1986–1990) uninitialized daily analyses for the summer season comprising June, July and August (JJA), produced at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) under the aegis of Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere (TOGA) have been considered to carry out the study.¶The following features characterize the Asian summer monsoon domain. It acts as the source of kinetic energy as well as vorticity, and sink of heat and moisture. Kinetic energy and vorticity are produced in the monsoon region and transported horizontally. On the contrary, heat and moisture are transported into the monsoon region. The zonal and meridional components of adiabatic generation of kinetic energy contribute to the production of kinetic energy over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, respectively. The horizontal advection of relative vorticity is balanced by sub-grid scale generation. The angular momentum generated due to pressure torque (east-west pressure gradient) is balanced by the flux convergence of omega momentum. Further, the angular momentum budget delineates that flux convergence of relative momentum is necessary to maintain the surface westerlies against the friction. The horizontal convergence of heat and moisture facilitates enhancement of diabatic heating, and also leads to the formation of diabatic heat sources, which are crucial to sustain the summer monsoon circulation.     

Analysis of various large-scale disturbances and the associated zonal mean motions in the atmosphere

Summary In this article, we present a scale analysis of planetary waves, extended long waves, and long waves. (We mean the extended long waves to be the disturbances whose east-west length is of order 10⁶ m and north-south extension 10⁷ m). We find for the extended long waves the two terms, the interaction between kinetic and available potential energy of the disturbances, and the interaction between the zonal mean available potential energy, and the eddy available potential energy, are of two orders of magnitude larger than the kinetic energy interaction between the disturbances and the associated zonal mean flow. This theoretical result concerning the relative importance of the various interaction terms may be of use in explaining the observational findings thus far available.It is also shown theoretically that the kinetic energy interaction between the planetary waves, the horizontal size of which is 10⁷ m, and the long waves, whose horizontal size is 10⁶ m, is of the same order as the interaction of kinetic energy between the zonal mean motion and the disturbances. This agrees fairly well with the observational estimates thus far obtained.     

Falling sphere observations of anisotropic gravity wave motions in the upper stratosphere over Australia

A study of inertial scale gravity wave motions in the region of the atmosphere between 30 and 60 km has been undertaken, using wind and temperature data derived from rocket-borne falling sphere density experiments performed over Woomera, Australia between 1962 nad 1976. The gross features of the wave field compare favorably with those found in similar northern hemispheric studies. Wave propagation is found to be both vertically and horizontally anisotropic. A rotary spectral analysis indicates predominately upgoing wave energy, suggesting that the majority of sources of these waves lie below 30 km. A detailed statistical investigation of the waves, made using the Stokes parameters technique, reveals that phase progression is also highly directional in the horizontal, with a significant zonal component in summer, but with a strong meridional component in winter. Propagation towards the southeast is inferred in summer, with the waves possibly emanating from tropospheric sources in equatorial regions to the north of Australia. The technique also shows that, on average, the waves appear to have mean ellipse eccentricities (=f/) around 0.4–0.45. Indirect estimates of a number of important wave parameters are made. In particular,v andw flux estimates are made over several height intervals. The vertical gradient of density weighted flux implies wave-induced mean flow accelerations of the order 0.1–1 ms^–1day^–1. This suggests that dissipating gravity waves are a significant source of the momentum residuals that are encountered in studies of satellite data from this region.     

Frequency Distribution of Tropospheric Triad Energy Interactions During Summer Monsoon 1988

—In order to understand the physical mechanism for maintenance of low frequency waves, computations of nonlinear kinetic energy (KE) exchanges into individual triad interactions in frequency domain by use of cross-spectral technique over global tropics (20°S–30°N) at 850 hPa and 200 hPa for June, July and August of 1988 are carried out. The KE exchanges among different frequencies and the interactions between the transient eddies and the time mean flow are found to be an order of magnitude smaller in the lower troposphere than those in the upper troposphere. The results show two distinct spectral peaks of periods 45 and 25 days in nonlinear energy transfer in the lower troposphere. The former is more pronounced than the latter. The role of time mean flow on the low frequency transients is found to be secondary compared to the effect of the leading term due to nonlinear interactions in the lower troposphere. Low frequency waves suffer a net loss of energy in the upper troposphere. In the lower troposphere, north of 20°N low frequency waves lose energy through nonlinear triad interactions, unlike the upper troposphere where gain of energy is noticed. Longitude-frequency distributions suggest that wave-CISK process and strong gradient of SST are the possible mechanisms for the strong energy interactions associated with low frequency waves in the lower troposphere over the west Pacific and east coast of Africa, respectively. The study may aid investigation of the rapid loss of predictability of low frequency modes over the tropics.     

Shear flow driven magnetized planetary wave structures in the ionosphere

The generation and further linear and nonlinear dynamics of planetary ultra-low-frequency (ULF) waves are investigated in the rotating dissipative ionosphere in the presence of inhomogeneous zonal wind (shear flow). Planetary ULF magnetized Rossby type waves appear as a result of interaction of the medium with the spatially inhomogeneous geomagnetic field. An effective linear mechanism responsible for the intensification and mutual transformation of large scale magnetized Rossby type and small scale inertial waves is found. For shear flows, the operators of the linear problem are not self-conjugate, and therefore the eigenfunctions of the problem may not be orthogonal and can hardly be studied by the canonical modal approach. Hence, it becomes necessary to use the so-called nonmodal mathematical analysis. The nonmodal analysis shows that the transformation of wave disturbances in shear flows is due to the non-orthogonality of eigenfunctions of the problem in the conditions of linear dynamics. Using numerical modeling, the peculiar features of the interaction of waves with the background flow as well as the mutual transformation of wave disturbances are illustrated in the ionosphere. It has been shown that the shear flow driven wave perturbations effectively extract an energy of the shear flow increasing the own energy and amplitude. These perturbations undergo self-organization in the form of the nonlinear solitary vortex structures due to nonlinear twisting of the perturbation’s front. Depending on the features of the velocity profiles of the shear flows the nonlinear vortex structures can be either monopole vortices or vortex streets and vortex chains.