THE RESPONSE OF A MIDDLE-LATITUDE MODEL ATMOSPHERE TO FORCING BY TOPOGRAPHY AND STATIONARY HEAT SOURCES

Abstract

The middle-latitude standing wave problem is investigated by means of a quasi-geostrophic, linear, steady-state model in which the zonal current is perturbed by the lower boundary topography and by a distribution of heat sources and sinks. All the perturbations are assumed to have a single meridional wavelength and the dissipation is considered to take place in the surface boundary layer using, as a first approach, a horizontally uniform drag coefficient. After investigating some basic properties of the model atmosphere, some computations are made to determine its response to the combined forcing by topography and by diabatic heating for January 1962. The resulting perturbations are found to be in rather good agreement with the observed standing waves. The results also indicate that the standing waves forced by the topography are in about the same position as those forced by the diabatic heating and that the former have somewhat larger amplitudes than the latter. The effect of allowing the drag coefficient to have one constant value over the continents and a smaller constant value over the oceans is examined and found to be quite important when the ratio of the two values is 6, but small (yet such as to bring the computed and observed eddies into closer agreement than in the case of a uniform drag coefficient) for a ratio of 2.