Tropical wave dynamics
Subtitle: final technical report on NSF Grant DES 75-10719
By: by Chih-Pei Chang and Roger T. Williams
Contributors: Williams, Roger Terry, 1936-; Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Publisher: Naval Postgraduate School
Published: 1978
Place of publication: Monterey, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 65
Subjects: Tropical meteorology; Atmospheric circulation; Monsoons
Description: This research may be divided into the following three parts: (a) waves forced by condensation heating in the troposphere, (b) the local barotropic instability produced by a spatially varying basic flow, (c) the numerical modeling of the wave-basic flow interactine system. In the first part, the problem of the vertical structure of tropical waves generated by cumulus heating is treated for the following two cases: (1) heating is controlled by large-scale low-level convergence and (2) heating receives no feedback from large-scale motion. In the first case it is shown that waves which have a short vertical wavelength relative to the vertical scale of heating are stable, and the structure of the most unstable solution is computed. In the second case it is shown that the forcing is most efficient for the longest zonal wavelength and that the most favored vertical wavelength is about twice the vertical scale of the heating. The effect of cumulus damping on planetary-scale Kelvin-like oscillation gives solution which resembles certain observed tropical circulation.
Notes: Title from cover.

"Prepared for: National Science Foundation"--Cover.

"March 1978"--Cover.

"NPS-63CJ78031"--Cover.

Final report for period October 1975-March 1978.

Author(s) subject terms: Tropical waves, tropical meteorology, tropical dynamics, monsoon, barotropic instability.

Includes bibliographical references.

"Approved for public release; distribution unlimited"--Cover.

Technical report; 1978.