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Note on the computation of heat sources and sinks in the atmosphere
Author(s) -
Shaw D. B.
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49709239106
Subject(s) - northern hemisphere , atmosphere (unit) , computation , southern hemisphere , magnitude (astronomy) , atmospheric sciences , transient (computer programming) , environmental science , climatology , meteorology , geology , mathematics , geography , physics , algorithm , astronomy , computer science , operating system
The contributions of various transport terms in the thermodynamic energy equation are calculated over the Northern Hemisphere for the four seasons. Local heating is found to be an order of magnitude less than the other terms. The computed fields due to mean horizontal motion cover a more extensive area than those of earlier investigations and extend over the Northern Hemisphere from surface to 100 mb for the four midseason months. An attempt to represent the effect of horizontal transient disturbances by relating it empirically to the mean temperature field is found to be unsatisfactory; direct computations are made of the eddy contribution over a large part of the hemisphere, for three successive winters and one summer. An estimate of the contribution due to vertical motions, both mean and transient, is obtained indirectly as the difference between results of the present study and those of earlier independent investigations of atmospheric heating.