Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editors' preface
- Keynote address to the 1977 Symposium SIR JAMES LIGHTHILL
- Part I The large-scale climatology of the tropical atmosphere
- 1 Teleconnections of rainfall anomalies in the tropics and subtropics
- 2 Northern summer planetary-scale monsoons during drought and normal rainfall months
- 3 The annual oscillation of the tropospheric temperature in the northern hemisphere
- 4 Summer mean energetics for standing and transient eddies in the wavenumber domain
- 5 Monitoring the monsoon outflow from geosynchronous satellite data
- 6 Predictability of monsoons
- 7 A review of general-circulation model experiments on the Indian monsoon
- 8 Simulation of the Asian summer monsoon by an 11-layer general-circulation model
- 9 Analysis of monsoonal quasi-stationary systems as revealed in a real-data prediction experiment
- 10 A model of the seasonally varying planetary-scale monsoon
- 11 Wave interactions in the equatorial atmosphere – an analytical Study
- Part II The summer monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and East Africa
- Part III The physics and dynamics of the Indian Ocean during the summer monsoon
- Part IV Some important mathematical modelling techniques
- Part V Storm surges and flood forecasting
- Index
10 - A model of the seasonally varying planetary-scale monsoon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editors' preface
- Keynote address to the 1977 Symposium SIR JAMES LIGHTHILL
- Part I The large-scale climatology of the tropical atmosphere
- 1 Teleconnections of rainfall anomalies in the tropics and subtropics
- 2 Northern summer planetary-scale monsoons during drought and normal rainfall months
- 3 The annual oscillation of the tropospheric temperature in the northern hemisphere
- 4 Summer mean energetics for standing and transient eddies in the wavenumber domain
- 5 Monitoring the monsoon outflow from geosynchronous satellite data
- 6 Predictability of monsoons
- 7 A review of general-circulation model experiments on the Indian monsoon
- 8 Simulation of the Asian summer monsoon by an 11-layer general-circulation model
- 9 Analysis of monsoonal quasi-stationary systems as revealed in a real-data prediction experiment
- 10 A model of the seasonally varying planetary-scale monsoon
- 11 Wave interactions in the equatorial atmosphere – an analytical Study
- Part II The summer monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and East Africa
- Part III The physics and dynamics of the Indian Ocean during the summer monsoon
- Part IV Some important mathematical modelling techniques
- Part V Storm surges and flood forecasting
- Index
Summary
A simple ocean–atmosphere climate model is used to test the hypothesis that the mean and transient structure of the monsoon system and the phasing of the response of the system relative to the solar declination are primarily functions of the differential heating of the land and ocean regions and the interaction of their individual responses. The model used is a dry version of the primitive equation domain-averaged model of Webster and Lau (1977a) which is the simplest model capable of incorporating a continental region and an interactive ocean system.
Both mean and seasonal transient features of the monsoon are well simulated by the model. The influences of the oceans to the south and east of the continents are found to be of equal importance in determining the phase of the atmospheric response. Zonal convergences of heat and momentum are found to be much greater than the meridional fluxes at low latitudes. Magnitudes of the heat convergence into the ocean domain from the continent in summer are at least as large as the radiative and boundary sensible heating in the ocean regions.
The results of the model are critically evaluated and the fields compared with the limited observations that exist in the monsoon region. The degree of complication that the model would have to assume to account for sub-seasonal variations is considered.
Introduction
Based on a criterion of seasonal surface-pressure persistence and wind reversal, the climatological monsoon region is generally defined to be contained within the subtropics and tropics of the eastern hemisphere (Ramage, 1971).
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- Monsoon Dynamics , pp. 165 - 192Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981
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