Steady, periodic, and aperiodic atmospheric flows

Abstract

Atmospheric weather patterns usually occur on scales of a 1000 km or 5000 km and greater, and quasisteady situations can be caused by the appearance of high pressure, blocking zones. Attention is given to the wave-wave interactions and their effects on atmospheric flows on the large scale. The discussion is performed with the beta-plane model for a spherical geometry and a large number of degrees of freedom. The barotropic potential vorticity equation is defined, and discretization of the topography of the sphere results in a spectral truncation with 25 components. The solutions are generated as a function of a forcing and a dissipative parameter. The model yields steady, periodic, and aperiodic solutions, which are shown to be analogous to zonal and blocked atmospheric flows.