Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editors' preface
- Keynote address to the 1977 Symposium SIR JAMES LIGHTHILL
- Part I The large-scale climatology of the tropical atmosphere
- 1 Teleconnections of rainfall anomalies in the tropics and subtropics
- 2 Northern summer planetary-scale monsoons during drought and normal rainfall months
- 3 The annual oscillation of the tropospheric temperature in the northern hemisphere
- 4 Summer mean energetics for standing and transient eddies in the wavenumber domain
- 5 Monitoring the monsoon outflow from geosynchronous satellite data
- 6 Predictability of monsoons
- 7 A review of general-circulation model experiments on the Indian monsoon
- 8 Simulation of the Asian summer monsoon by an 11-layer general-circulation model
- 9 Analysis of monsoonal quasi-stationary systems as revealed in a real-data prediction experiment
- 10 A model of the seasonally varying planetary-scale monsoon
- 11 Wave interactions in the equatorial atmosphere – an analytical Study
- Part II The summer monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and East Africa
- Part III The physics and dynamics of the Indian Ocean during the summer monsoon
- Part IV Some important mathematical modelling techniques
- Part V Storm surges and flood forecasting
- Index
3 - The annual oscillation of the tropospheric temperature in the northern hemisphere
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editors' preface
- Keynote address to the 1977 Symposium SIR JAMES LIGHTHILL
- Part I The large-scale climatology of the tropical atmosphere
- 1 Teleconnections of rainfall anomalies in the tropics and subtropics
- 2 Northern summer planetary-scale monsoons during drought and normal rainfall months
- 3 The annual oscillation of the tropospheric temperature in the northern hemisphere
- 4 Summer mean energetics for standing and transient eddies in the wavenumber domain
- 5 Monitoring the monsoon outflow from geosynchronous satellite data
- 6 Predictability of monsoons
- 7 A review of general-circulation model experiments on the Indian monsoon
- 8 Simulation of the Asian summer monsoon by an 11-layer general-circulation model
- 9 Analysis of monsoonal quasi-stationary systems as revealed in a real-data prediction experiment
- 10 A model of the seasonally varying planetary-scale monsoon
- 11 Wave interactions in the equatorial atmosphere – an analytical Study
- Part II The summer monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and East Africa
- Part III The physics and dynamics of the Indian Ocean during the summer monsoon
- Part IV Some important mathematical modelling techniques
- Part V Storm surges and flood forecasting
- Index
Summary
Mean monthly temperature data at 850, 700, 500, 300, 200 and 100 mb from about 120 radiosonde stations over the northern hemisphere are subjected to harmonic analysis to study the annual oscillation of tropospheric temperature. Two main features stand out in this analysis. Firstly, over the tropics at individual stations double maxima occur–one at the lowest level, and the other at about 300 mb. Secondly, the amplitude of the annual oscillation is large over the tropics and subtropics with the maximum value appearing over the Asiatic monsoon region. There is a phase lag varying from 30 to 45 days between the two tropospheric maxima–the upper-tropospheric one occurring later and towards the end of July. The lower-tropospheric maximum is linked with the sensible heating. The physical forcing mechanisms of the upper-tropospheric maximum are discussed. The contribution of latent heating to the high amplitude of the upper-tropospheric maximum over the monsoon region is emphasized. A schematic model for the tropospheric heating and its link with the dynamics of the Asiatic summer monsoon is suggested.
Introduction
A study of Smagorinsky (1953) showed that atmospheric motions are affected not only by the zonally-asymmetric distribution of heating and cooling, but also by the major orographic influences. The large-scale circulation associated with the summer monsoon is described in the classical literature as the interaction of the annual cycle of solar radiation and the differential effective heat capacities of land masses and oceans. The most striking feature of the Asian summer monsoon is its annual periodicity.
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- Monsoon Dynamics , pp. 49 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981
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