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Description
To understand the climate variability and weather prediction in the Earth’s atmosphere, measurements of winds, temperature and wave activities are very crucial. The Earth’s atmosphere is believed to act as a source and sink for the waves of a broader spectrum with periods from few seconds to years. Generally, the Earth’s atmosphere is stably stratified except the planetary boundary layer and thus makes a reasonable assumption for the presence of atmospheric waves. A barotropic atmosphere in a resting basic state is able to support these spectra of waves. These waves move diagonally upward or downward and horizontally. The mean zonal circulation is mainly driven by these atmospheric waves, which are believed to be generated in the troposphere and propagates horizontally and vertically in to the middle and upper atmosphere. These waves transport energy and momentum from one region to another without the transport of material medium thereby impinging the signature of the source region on to the sink region. The waves propagating in Earth's atmosphere are expected to be both anisotropic and dispersive. The anisotropic characteristics of these waves mean that the properties of the waves are not uniform in all the directions. The propagating waves can be characterized by the amplitude and phase, which depends on time and space. When the wave frequency depends on the wavelength (2/K) then the wave is dispersive. For such waves the group velocity is different from the phase velocity. A better understanding of the vertical coupling by these wave activities will provide a deeper insight into the processes that control the dynamics and energetics of the whole atmosphere.
ISBN
978-953-51-0095-9
Publisher
InTech
Publication Date
3-9-2012
Keywords
Modern Climatology, whole system, historical statistics, variability, atmosphere, prediction
Disciplines
Climate | Earth Sciences
Comments
This book originally published by InTech. Publisher's version may be found here: http://www.intechopen.com/books/modern-climatology Physical copies of this work are also available on the publisher's website. Please use publishers recommended citation.