The horizontal wavenumber spectra of wind and temperature near the tropopause have a steep 23 slope at synoptic scales and a shallower 25/3 slope at mesoscales, with a transition between the two regimes at a wavelength of about 450 km. Here it is demonstrated that a quasigeostrophic model driven by baroclinic instability exhibits such a transition near its upper boundary (analogous to the tropo...

Observations of open-ocean deep convection indicate that it is a highly localized phenomenon, occurring over areas of tens of kilometers in diameter. The cause of this localization has been ascribed to ‘‘preconditioning’’— the local weakening of the stable density stratification associated with upwardly domed isopycnal surfaces in a surface-intensified cyclonic circulation. However, most numeri...

OF DISSERTATION Moist Synoptic Transport of CO2 Along Midlatitude Storm Tracks, Transport Uncertainty, and Implications for Flux Estimation Mass transport along moist isentropic surfaces on baroclinic waves represents an important component of the atmospheric heat engine that operates between the equator and poles. This is also an important vehicle for tracer transport, and is correlated with e...

The nonlinear behaviors of Eady-type baroclinic waves forced quasi-resonantly by topography are investigated. The complex amplitude equation which is a Landau equation with forcing terms is derived by using the perturbation method; the effect of viscosity is taken into account in the leading order as the Ekman layers at the top and the bottom of the fluid layer. For a given wave number and a ba...

A database of tropical cyclone best track and intensity information for the southwest Pacific Ocean basin is used to construct a 28-year climatology for tropical cyclones that move into middle latitudes. Of the nine or so tropical cyclones that form each year, an average of about three can be expected to migrate south of 358S, with the greatest fraction in March. Storms entering the Tasman Sea ...

Design and perform controlled numerical experiments with a realistic hurricane model (Wang 1998) and a coupled hurricane-ocean model to identify major processes determining baroclinic TC motion in the presence of convective heating and/or air-sea interaction. We develop, test, and apply a new diagnostic framework, the potential vorticity tendency (PVT) analysis, for quantifying contributions of...

Seasonal-to-interannual variability of intermediate circulations in the southwest tropical Pacific is key to interhemisphere and interbasin water mass exchange shown be interconnected with wind forcing El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) based on numerical model results validated by mooring observations. The Lower Equatorial Intermediate Current part New Guinea Coastal Undercurrent show clear s...