ATM OCN (Meteorology) 100
PLANETARY SCALE CIRCULATION
(continued)
PART II - THE JET STREAM
Summer 2004
Lecture #17-B Scheduled for:
14 JUL 2004 (W)
Recommended Readings from Moran (2002):
pages 200-207; 306-307.
Objectives:
- To explain the cause of the thermal-wind relation and identify the characteristics.
- To explain why the midlatitude flow aloft is predominantly westerly, with upper tropospheric jet streams, located over the near surface polar front.
- To identify the thermal distribution and regions of an upper atmospheric wave.
- To describe the seasonal variation in the circumpolar vortex.
Today's Lecture Outline:
A. INTRODUCTION
- Definition and significance
- Discovery of the Jet Stream
B. ANATOMY OF THE JET STREAM
- Jet Stream Structure
- Types of Major Jet Streams
- Seasonal Variations in Jet Streams
- Reasons for Jet Streams
- The Thermal Wind Relationship
C. WAVES IN THE WESTERLIES
- The Circumpolar Vortex
- Observed Wave Features in The Circumpolar Vortex
- Long Planetary or Rossby Waves
Seasonal Variations in the Circumpolar Vortex
Latest revision: 2 August 2004 (0250 UTC)
Produced by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D.
Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706
hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
URL: aos100/lectures/s0417plcr2.html