Change of atmospheric general circulation due to global warming: Inferences from a physical model
- Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
A series of laboratory experiments were conducted to study the behavior of an azimuthal westerly jet in a linearly stratified rotating fluid. A cylindrical geometry was used for the experiment. The jet is characterized by vertical and horizontal shear and the stability of the flow was considered experimentally. The jet is driven by a source-sink method. A jet Rossby (Ro) number against Richardson (Ri) number flow regime diagram is presented, which shows that the wave mode of the instability decreases with increasing Ro and Ri, for fixed Ri and Ro, respectively. According to the similarity criteria, a regime diagram for the atmosphere based on the latitudinal temperature gradient against jet characteristic width is also presented. As the global warming with the poles having a higher temperature rise than the tropics occurs, the velocity of the jet decreases and the jet width increases. The experiment results show that the wave number of the instabilities of westerly jet increases under such conditions. The westerly-easterly shear instability experiments also show that the number of subtropical highs would increase as the latitudinal temperature gradient decreases due to global warming.
- OSTI ID:
- 182816
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940426-; ISBN 0-923204-11-3; TRN: IM9608%%181
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: International conference on global climate change: science, policy and mitigation strategies, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 5-8 Apr 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994; Related Information: Is Part Of Global climate change: Science, policy, and mitigation strategies. Proceedings of the Air and Waste Management Association international specialty conference; Mathai, C.V. [ed.] [Arizona Public Service Co., Phoenix, AZ (United States)]; Stensland, G. [ed.] [Illinois State Water Survey, Champaign, IL (United States)]; PB: 1117 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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