Book ChapterDOI
Middle Atmospheric Dynamics and Transport: Some Current Challenges to our Understanding
Michael E. McIntyre
- pp 1-18
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TLDR
The fluid dynamics of wave propagation, wave breaking, and the resulting turbulence poses three major challenges to research on middle atmospheric dynamics and chemical transport as mentioned in this paper, including the unjustifiability of the eddydiffusivity concept, under conditions often met with in the atmosphere, ill-understood nature of the Rossby-wave-associated dynamical feedbacks on the global circulation, and an acute difficulty in parameterizing vertical mixing by convectively overturning gravity waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere.Abstract:
The fluid dynamics of wave propagation, wave breaking, and the resulting turbulence — be it the fully three-dimensional small-scale turbulence due to breaking internal gravity waves, or the layerwise two-dimensional turbulence due to breaking Rossby waves — poses three major challenges to research on middle atmospheric dynamics and chemical transport. These are, first, the unjustifiability of the eddy-diffusivity concept, under conditions often met with in the atmosphere, second, the ill-understood nature of the Rossby-wave-associated dynamical feedbacks on the global circulation and, third, an acute difficulty in parameterizing vertical mixing by convectively overturning gravity waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
An atmospheric tape recorder: The imprint of tropical tropopause temperatures on stratospheric water vapor
Philip W. Mote,Karen H. Rosenlof,Michael E. McIntyre,Ewan S. Carr,John C. Gille,James R. Holton,Jonathan S. Kinnersley,Hugh C. Pumphrey,James M. Russell,Joe W. Waters +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe observations of tropical stratospheric water vapor q that show clear evidence of large-scale upward advection of the signal from annual fluctuations in the effective "entry mixing ratio" qE of air entering the tropical stratosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tropical stratospheric circulation deduced from satellite aerosol data
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the aerosol distribution following volcanic eruptions in the tropics and found that poleward transport occurs readily at altitudes within a few kilometres above the tropopause, whereas in the altitude range of 21-28 km, aerosols tend to remain within 20° of the Equator.
Journal ArticleDOI
The poleward dispersal of Mount Pinatubo volcanic aerosol
TL;DR: Using the SAGE II 1-μm stratospheric aerosol extinction ratio observations, the dispersal of Mount Pinatubo aerosol within two transport regimes during the first 10 months after the eruption is displayed in meridional cross sections as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Transport out of the lower stratospheric Arctic vortex by Rossby wave breaking
Darryn W. Waugh,R. A. Plumb,Roger J. Atkinson,Mark R. Schoeberl,Leslie R. Lait,Paul A. Newman,Max Loewenstein,Darin W. Toohey,Linnea M. Avallone,Christopher R. Webster,Randy D. May +10 more
TL;DR: The fine-scale structure in lower stratospheric tracer transport during the period of two Arctic Airborne Stratospheric Expeditions (January and February 1989, December 1991 to March 1992) is investigated using contour advection with surgery calculations as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
A climatology of stratospheric aerosol
TL;DR: A global climatology of stratospheric aerosol is created by combining nearly a decade (1979-1981 and 1984-1990) of contemporaneous observations from the SAGE I and II and Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement (SAM II) instruments as mentioned in this paper.
References
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TL;DR: In this article, a theoretical investigation of the spectrum of a turbulent fluid at large wave-numbers is presented, taking into account the two effects of convection with the fluid and molecular diffusion with diffusivity k. Hypotheses of the kind made by Kolmogoroff for the small-scale variations of velocity in a turbulent motion at high Reynolds number are assumed to apply also to small-size variations of θ.
Journal ArticleDOI
On the “Downward Control” of Extratropical Diabatic Circulations by Eddy-Induced Mean Zonal Forces
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors considered a zonally symmetric model of the middle atmosphere subject to a given quasi-steady zonal force F, conceived to be the result of irreversible angular momentum transfer due to the upward propagation and breaking of Rossby and gravity waves together with any other dissipative eddy effects that may be relevant.