The Transport of Trace Chemicals by Planetary Waves in the Stratosphere. Part 1: Steady Waves

Abstract

When dissipation is present a forced planetary wave will interact with the zonal flow in the stratosphere and cause acceleration of the zonal wind, mean-zonal diabatic heating and net transport of trace chemicals. Quasi-geostrophic scaling is used to derive expressions relating the above quantities to each other and to wave statistics for steady-state conditions and Newtonian cooling. Numerical calculations are presented for stationary wavenumber 1 which indicate that in the stratosphere the effect of the wave on the mean-zonal quantities is ? to 1/20 that required by observations and models. In the mesosphere the calculated value is roughly 1/20 the required size. Reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.