The effects of mechanical forcing on the mean meridional circulation and transfer properties of the atmosphere

Experiments using a quasi-geostrophic model and the ECMWF T21 spectral model with and without orography are performed to investigate the effects of mechanical forcing on the mean meridional circulation. Results show that mechanical forcing intensifies the horizontal poleward heat flux and redistributes the eddy angular momentum in the vertical, and that this changes significantly the intensity and location of the mean me-ridional circulation centres.It is shown how the mean meridional circulation is set up in such a way to satisfy both the dynamical and thermodynamical transport requirements of the model atmosphere. Whenever external forcing changes the eddy fluxes, the Coriolis torques from the upper horizontal branches of the mean meridional circulations change to balance the extra divergence of eddy momentum flux, and additional adiabatic heating is produced by the vertical branches of the toroids to balance the extra divergence of eddy heat flux. The mean meridional circula-tion is, therefore, confirmed to be very sensitive to mechanical forcing, and can be used as an efficient tool to quantitatively diagnose the adequacy of the orographic representation of numerical forecasting and general cir-culation models.