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Could anyone translate this?__From JMA
2. Stratospheric Warming
The Stratospheric Sudden Warming (SSW) is a phenomenon characterized by a rapid increase in polar temperatures in the stratosphere. The temperature increases more than a few dozen degrees in a few days in the boreal winter. In some cases the westerly polar night jet disappears and easterly winds appear during the warming. JMA is monitoring SSWs as one of the Regional Warming Centers. The warming is called a "Minor Warming", when the polar temperature increases more than 25 degrees in a period of a week or less at any stratospheric level. If the zonal-mean temperature increases poleward from 60 degrees latitude and the net zonal-mean zonal winds become easterly at 60 degrees latitude at 10-hPa (32 km) or below, it is classified as a "Major Warming". The SSW was discovered in 1952 by Scherhag (1952), but it took some time before the mechanism was theoretically identified by Matsuno (1971). The SSW is caused by a rapid amplification of planetary waves propagating upward from the troposphere. Planetary waves deposit westward momentum and create a strong meridional circulation which produces a large warming in the polar stratosphere due to adiabatic heating (e.g., McIntyre 1982).
4. E-P Flux Analysis
As mentioned above, the stratospheric and the tropospheric circulation are connected with each other through wave mean-flow interactions. The Eliassen-Palm (E-P) flux (Eliassen and Palm, 1961) is widely used to characterize the wave activity. The direction of the E-P flux is proportional to the group velocity and indicates the direction of the propagation of the waves. Approximately, the vertical and horizontal components of the E-P flux are proportional to the eddy heat and momentum flux, respectively. The divergence of E-P flux is proportional to the northward flux of quasi-geostrophic potential vorticity, so that it is a direct measure of the total forcing of the zonal-mean flow by eddies. Therefore, the E-P flux and its divergence are important and useful to diagnose planetary waves propagation as well as the effective mean zonal force induced by the waves. Some figures on this web page display E-P fluxes under different forms, such as meridional cross-sections and time series, for monitoring the stratospheric circulation. |
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