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Winter depression tracks and climatological jet streams in the Southern Hemisphere during the FGGE year
Author(s) -
Physick W. L.
Publication year - 1981
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.49710745409
Subject(s) - jet stream , climatology , eddy , tropopause , northern hemisphere , mean flow , geology , atmospheric sciences , jet (fluid) , extratropical cyclone , zonal flow (plasma) , southern hemisphere , environmental science , momentum (technical analysis) , troposphere , meteorology , physics , turbulence , plasma , finance , quantum mechanics , economics , tokamak , thermodynamics
A band‐pass filter transparent to fluctuations in the 2£5‐6 day period range is applied to a set of twice‐daily analyses covering the 1979 (FGGE year) winter of the Southern Hemisphere. Fields analysed include MSL pressure, 500mb height, 300mb wind, and the meridional heat flux due to transient eddies at 850mb. Variance maxima in these filtered fields indicate regions of high cyclonic activity, with favoured cyclolysis areas in the vicinity of the Antarctic coastline also showing up in the MSL pressure statistics. Using these results, supplemented by data on the distribution of cyclogenesis, we are able to identify the major depression tracks. In this analysis, extensive use is made of studies relating satellite‐observed cloud vortices to the various stages of cyclonic development. In general, it appears there was significantly more activity in the eastern hemisphere than in the western during the 1979 winter. By evaluating the terms in the time‐averaged zonal momentum equation (using the unfiltered data set), it is possible to assess the role of transient eddies in the maintenance of the time‐mean zonal flow. This analysis shows that Coriolis acceleration associated with poleward time‐mean ageostrophic flow at the tropopause level dominates the forcing of the jet centred around 25°S, but that convergence of eddy momentum flux maintains the higher latitude jet around 50°S. However, a significant contribution to the latter jet comes from poleward ageostrophic flow south of Africa.