ATM OCN (Meteorology) 100 - Lecture 3

PLANETARY SCALE CIRCULATION (continued)
THE JET STREAM & THE CIRCUMPOLAR VORTEX

Fall 1997

Lecture #23 Scheduled for:

3 NOV 1997 (M)

Recommended Readings from Moran and Morgan (1997):

pages 240-243; 234-240.

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.
• To describe the relationship between the polar front and the midlatitude jet stream.
• To identify the thermal distribution and regions of an upper atmospheric wave.
• To describe the seasonal variation in the circumpolar vortex.

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

Last revision 10 November 1997

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