IAM Seminar Series: Prof. David Muraki
- Date: 09/19/2011
- Time: 15:00
University of British Columbia
There is a marked difference in the weather patterns and climate between
the Earth's equatorial and midlatitude regions. Much of this difference
is due to the active role of moisture and convection in the tropics.
However, the even the dry fluid dynamiics of both
regions are sufficiently different that their wave theories are
typically found in disjoint chapters in the textbooks on atmospheric
science. In this talk, two aspects of planetary waves are given a
unified presentation for the entire sphere. The first is an extension of
the midlatitude concept of potential vorticity which now gives a
description for waves crossing the equator. The second is an embedding
of equatorial wave theory into a global context that includes the
tradewinds which are known to block midlatitude waves from the tropics.