Atmospheric circulation
Encyclopedia
Thermal energy
Thermal energy is the part of the total internal energy of a thermodynamic system or sample of matter that results in the system's temperature....
is distributed on the surface of the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
.
The large-scale structure of the atmospheric circulation varies from year to year, but the basic climatological structure remains fairly constant. However, individual weather systems - mid-latitude depressions, or tropical convective cells - occur "randomly", and it is accepted that weather cannot be predicted beyond a fairly short limit: perhaps a month in theory, or (currently) about ten days in practice (see Chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
and Butterfly effect
Butterfly effect
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state...
). Nonetheless, as the climate is the average of these systems and patterns - where and when they tend to occur again and again -, it is stable over longer periods of time.
As a rule, the "cells" of Earth's atmosphere shift polewards in warmer climates (e.g. interglacial
Interglacial
An Interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age...
s compared to glacials), but remain largely constant even due to continental drift
Continental drift
Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912...
. Tectonic uplift
Tectonic uplift
Tectonic uplift is a geological process most often caused by plate tectonics which increases elevation. The opposite of uplift is subsidence, which results in a decrease in elevation. Uplift may be orogenic or isostatic.-Orogenic uplift:...
can significantly alter major elements of it, however - for example the jet stream
Jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. The main jet streams are located near the tropopause, the transition between the troposphere and the stratosphere . The major jet streams on Earth are westerly winds...
-, and plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
shift ocean current
Ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...
s. In the extremely hot climates of the Mesozoic
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic era is an interval of geological time from about 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. It is often referred to as the age of reptiles because reptiles, namely dinosaurs, were the dominant terrestrial and marine vertebrates of the time...
, indications of a third desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
belt at the Equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
has been found; it was perhaps caused by convection
Convection
Convection is the movement of molecules within fluids and rheids. It cannot take place in solids, since neither bulk current flows nor significant diffusion can take place in solids....
. But even then, the overall latitudinal pattern of Earth's climate was not much different from the one today.
Latitudinal circulation features
Hadley cell
The Hadley cell, named after George Hadley, is a circulation pattern that dominates the tropical atmosphere, with rising motion near the equator, poleward flow 10–15 kilometers above the surface, descending motion in the subtropics, and equatorward flow near the surface...
, the Ferrel cell, and the Polar cell
Polar cells
Polar cells are part of a three-cell movement involving Hadley cells and Ferrel cells which show atmospheric circulation and surface winds.Cold dense air descends over the poles, which creates high pressure; this cold air moves along the surface to lower latitudes. At around 60 degrees north and...
. Contrary to the impression given in the simplified diagram, the vast bulk of the vertical motion occurs in the Hadley cell; the explanations of the other two cells are complex. Note that there is one discrete Hadley cell that may split, shift and merge in a complicated process over time . Low and high pressures on earth's surface are balanced by opposite relative pressures in the upper troposphere.
Hadley cell
George Hadley
George Hadley was an English lawyer and amateur meteorologist who proposed the atmospheric mechanism by which the Trade Winds are sustained. As a key factor in ensuring that European sailing vessels reached North American shores, understanding the Trade Winds was becoming a matter of great...
described to provide an explanation for the trade wind
Trade wind
The trade winds are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics, within the lower portion of the Earth's atmosphere, in the lower section of the troposphere near the Earth's equator...
s matches observations very well. It is a closed circulation loop, which begins at the equator with warm, moist air lifted aloft in equatorial low pressure area
Low pressure area
A low-pressure area, or "low", is a region where the atmospheric pressure at sea level is below that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure systems form under areas of wind divergence which occur in upper levels of the troposphere. The formation process of a low-pressure area is known as...
s (the Intertropical Convergence Zone
Intertropical Convergence Zone
The Intertropical Convergence Zone , known by sailors as The Doldrums, is the area encircling the earth near the equator where winds originating in the northern and southern hemispheres come together....
, ITCZ) to the tropopause
Tropopause
The tropopause is the atmospheric boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere.-Definition:Going upward from the surface, it is the point where air ceases to cool with height, and becomes almost completely dry...
and carried poleward. At about 30°N/S latitude, it descends in a high pressure area
High pressure area
A high-pressure area is a region where the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the planet is greater than its surrounding environment. Winds within high-pressure areas flow outward due to the higher density air near their center and friction with land...
. Some of the descending air travels equatorially along the surface, closing the loop of the Hadley cell and creating the Trade Winds
Trade wind
The trade winds are the prevailing pattern of easterly surface winds found in the tropics, within the lower portion of the Earth's atmosphere, in the lower section of the troposphere near the Earth's equator...
.
Though the Hadley cell is described as lying on the equator, it is more accurate to describe it as following the sun’s zenith
Zenith
The zenith is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the imaginary celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction opposite to the apparent gravitational force at that location. The opposite direction, i.e...
point, or what is termed the "thermal equator
Thermal equator
The thermal equator is a belt encircling the Earth, defined by the set of locations having the highest mean annual temperature at each longitude around the globe...
," which undergoes a semiannual north-south migration.
Polar cell
The Polar cell is likewise a simple system. Though cool and dry relative to equatorial air, air masses at the 60th parallel are still sufficiently warm and moist to undergo convectionConvection
Convection is the movement of molecules within fluids and rheids. It cannot take place in solids, since neither bulk current flows nor significant diffusion can take place in solids....
and drive a thermal loop
Thermal loop
A thermal loop is a movement of air driven by warm air rising at one end of the loop, and cool air descending at the other end, creating a constantly moving loop of air. Thermal loops also occur in liquids....
. Air circulates within the troposphere
Troposphere
The troposphere is the lowest portion of Earth's atmosphere. It contains approximately 80% of the atmosphere's mass and 99% of its water vapor and aerosols....
, limited vertically by the tropopause at about 8 km. Warm air rises at lower latitudes and moves poleward through the upper troposphere at both the north and south poles. When the air reaches the polar areas, it has cooled considerably, and descends as a cold, dry high pressure area, moving away from the pole along the surface but twisting westward as a result of the Coriolis effect
Coriolis effect
In physics, the Coriolis effect is a deflection of moving objects when they are viewed in a rotating reference frame. In a reference frame with clockwise rotation, the deflection is to the left of the motion of the object; in one with counter-clockwise rotation, the deflection is to the right...
to produce the Polar easterlies
Polar easterlies
The polar easterlies are the dry, cold prevailing winds that blow from the high-pressure areas of the polar highs at the north and south poles towards low-pressure areas within the Westerlies at high latitudes...
.
The outflow from the cell creates harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
waves in the atmosphere known as Rossby wave
Rossby wave
Atmospheric Rossby waves are giant meanders in high-altitude winds that are a major influence on weather.They are not to be confused with oceanic Rossby waves, which move along the thermocline: that is, the boundary between the warm upper layer of the ocean and the cold deeper part of the...
s. These ultra-long waves play an important role in determining the path of the jet stream
Jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. The main jet streams are located near the tropopause, the transition between the troposphere and the stratosphere . The major jet streams on Earth are westerly winds...
, which travels within the transitional zone between the tropopause
Tropopause
The tropopause is the atmospheric boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere.-Definition:Going upward from the surface, it is the point where air ceases to cool with height, and becomes almost completely dry...
and the Ferrel cell. By acting as a heat sink
Heat sink
A heat sink is a term for a component or assembly that transfers heat generated within a solid material to a fluid medium, such as air or a liquid. Examples of heat sinks are the heat exchangers used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems and the radiator in a car...
, the Polar cell also balances the Hadley cell in the Earth’s energy equation.
It can be argued that the Polar cell is the primary weathermaker for regions above the middle northern latitudes. While Canadians and Europeans may have to deal with occasional heavy summer storms, there is nothing like a winter visit from a Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n high to give one a true appreciation of real cold. In fact, it is the polar high which is responsible for generating the coldest temperature recorded on Earth: -89.2°C at Vostok Station
Vostok Station
Vostok Station was a Russian Antarctic research station. It was at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest reliably measured natural temperature on Earth of −89.2 °C . Research includes ice core drilling and magnetometry...
in 1983 in Antarctica.
The Hadley cell and the Polar cell are similar in that they are thermally direct; in other words, they exist as a direct consequence of surface temperatures; their thermal characteristics override the effects of weather in their domain. The sheer volume of energy the Hadley cell transports, and the depth of the heat sink
Heat sink
A heat sink is a term for a component or assembly that transfers heat generated within a solid material to a fluid medium, such as air or a liquid. Examples of heat sinks are the heat exchangers used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems and the radiator in a car...
that is the Polar cell, ensures that the effects of transient weather phenomena are not only not felt by the system as a whole, but — except under unusual circumstances — are not even permitted to form. The endless chain of passing highs and lows which is part of everyday life for mid-latitude dwellers is unknown above the 60th and below the 30th parallels. There are some notable exceptions to this rule. In Europe, unstable weather extends to at least 70° north
70th parallel north
The 70th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 70 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane, in the Arctic. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, Asia and North America, and passes through some of the southern seas of the Arctic Ocean....
.
These atmospheric features are also stable, so even though they may strengthen or weaken regionally or over time, they do not vanish entirely.
Ferrel cell
The Ferrel cell, theorized by William FerrelWilliam Ferrel
William Ferrel , an American meteorologist, developed theories which explained the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation cell in detail, and it is after him that the Ferrel cell is named. He was born in southern Pennsylvania. His family moved to what would become West Virginia in 1829...
(1817-1891), is a secondary circulation feature, dependent for its existence upon the Hadley cell and the Polar cell. It behaves much as an atmospheric ball bearing between the Hadley cell and the Polar cell, and comes about as a result of the eddy
Eddy (fluid dynamics)
In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid flows past an obstacle. The moving fluid creates a space devoid of downstream-flowing fluid on the downstream side of the object...
circulations (the high and low pressure areas) of the mid-latitudes. For this reason it is sometimes known as the "zone of mixing." At its southern extent (in the Northern hemisphere), it overrides the Hadley cell, and at its northern extent, it overrides the Polar cell. Just as the Trade Winds can be found below the Hadley cell, the Westerlies
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...
can be found beneath the Ferrel cell. Thus, strong high pressure areas which divert the prevailing westerlies, such as a Siberian high
Siberian High
The Siberian High is a massive collection of cold or very cold dry air that accumulates on the Eurasian terrain for much of the year. It reaches its greatest size and strength in the winter, when the air temperature near the center of the high-pressure cell or anticyclone is often lower than...
(which could be considered an extension of the Arctic high), could be said to override the Ferrel cell, making it discontinuous.
While the Hadley and Polar cells are truly closed loops, the Ferrel cell is not, and the telling point is in the Westerlies
Westerlies
The Westerlies, anti-trades, or Prevailing Westerlies, are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude, blowing from the high pressure area in the horse latitudes towards the poles. These prevailing winds blow from the west to the east, and steer extratropical...
, which are more formally known as "the Prevailing Westerlies." While the Trade Winds and the Polar Easterlies have nothing over which to prevail, their parent circulation cells having taken care of any competition they might have to face, the Westerlies are at the mercy of passing weather systems. While upper-level winds are essentially westerly, surface winds can vary sharply and abruptly in direction. A low moving polewards or a high moving equator wards maintains or even accelerates a westerly flow; the local passage of a cold front may change that in a matter of minutes, and frequently does. A strong high moving polewards may bring easterly winds for days.
The base of the Ferrel cell is characterized by the movement of air masses, and the location of these air masses is influenced in part by the location of the jet stream, which acts as a collector for the air carried aloft by surface lows (a look at a weather map will show that surface lows follow the jet stream
Jet stream
Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. The main jet streams are located near the tropopause, the transition between the troposphere and the stratosphere . The major jet streams on Earth are westerly winds...
). The overall movement of surface air is from the 30th latitude to the 60th. However, the upper flow of the Ferrel cell is not well defined. This is in part because it is intermediary between the Hadley and Polar cells, with neither a strong heat source nor a strong cold sink to drive convection and, in part, because of the effects on the upper atmosphere of surface eddies, which act as destabilizing influences.
Longitudinal circulation features
While the Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar cells are major factors in global heat transport, they do not act alone. Disparities in temperature also drive a set of longitudinal circulation cells, and the overall atmospheric motion is known as the zonal overturning circulation.Latitudinal circulation is the consequence of the fact that incident solar radiation per unit area is highest at the heat equator, and decreases as the latitude increases, reaching its minimum at the poles. Longitudinal circulation, on the other hand, comes about because water has a higher specific heat capacity than land and thereby absorbs and releases more heat, but the temperature changes less than land. Even at mesoscales
Mesoscale meteorology
Mesoscale meteorology is the study of weather systems smaller than synoptic scale systems but larger than microscale and storm-scale cumulus systems. Horizontal dimensions generally range from around 5 kilometers to several hundred kilometers...
(a horizontal range of 5 to several hundred kilometres), this effect is noticeable; it is what brings the sea breeze, air cooled by the water, ashore in the day, and carries the land breeze, air cooled by contact with the ground, out to sea during the night.
On a larger scale, this effect ceases to be diurnal (daily), and instead is seasonal or even decadal
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
in its effects. Warm air rises over the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
ial, continent
Continent
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents—they are : Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.Plate tectonics is...
al, and western Pacific Ocean regions, flows eastward or westward, depending on its location, when it reaches the tropopause, and subside
Subsidence
Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...
s in the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
s, and in the eastern Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
.
The Pacific Ocean cell plays a particularly important role in Earth's weather
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers, generally, to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate...
. This entirely ocean-based cell comes about as the result of a marked difference in the surface temperatures of the western and eastern Pacific. Under ordinary circumstances, the western Pacific waters are warm and the eastern waters are cool. The process begins when strong convective activity over equatorial East Asia and subsiding cool air off South America's west coast creates a wind pattern which pushes Pacific water westward and piles it up in the western Pacific. (Water levels in the western Pacific are about 60 cm higher than in the eastern Pacific, a difference due entirely to the force of moving air.)
Walker circulation
The Pacific cell is of such importance that it has been named the Walker circulation after Sir Gilbert Walker, an early-20th-century director of British observatories in IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, who sought a means of predicting when the monsoon
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...
winds would fail. While he was never successful in doing so, his work led him to the discovery of an indisputable link between periodic pressure variations in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which he termed the "Southern Oscillation".
The movement of air in the Walker circulation affects the loops on either side. Under "normal" circumstances, the weather behaves as expected. But every few years, the winters become unusually warm or unusually cold, or the frequency of hurricanes increases or decreases, and the pattern sets in for an indeterminate period.
The behavior of the Walker cell is the key to the riddle, and leads to an understanding of the El Niño (more accurately, ENSO or El Niño - Southern Oscillation) phenomenon.
If convective activity slows in the Western Pacific for some reason (this reason is not currently known), the climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
dominoes next to it begin to topple. First, the upper-level westerly winds fail. This cuts off the source of cool subsiding air, and therefore the surface Easterlies cease.
The consequence of this is twofold. In the eastern Pacific, warm water surges in from the west since there is no longer a surface wind to constrain it. This and the corresponding effects of the Southern Oscillation result in long-term unseasonable temperatures and precipitation patterns in North and South America, Australia, and Southeast Africa, and disruption of ocean currents.
Meanwhile in the Atlantic, high-level, fast-blowing Westerlies which would ordinarily be blocked by the Walker circulation and unable to reach such intensities, form. These winds tear apart the tops of nascent hurricanes and greatly diminish the number which are able to reach full strength.
El Niño - Southern Oscillation
El Niño and La Niña are two opposite surface temperature anomalies in the Southern Pacific, which heavily influence the weather on a large scale. In the case of El Niño warm water approaches the coasts of South America which results in blocking the upwelling of nutrient-rich deep water. This has serious impacts on the fish populations.In the La Niña case, the convective cell over the western Pacific strengthens inordinately, resulting in colder than normal winters in North America, and a more robust cyclone season in South-East Asia and Eastern Australia. There is increased upwelling of deep cold ocean waters and more intense uprise of surface air near South America, resulting in increasing numbers of drought occurrence, although it is often argued that fishermen reap benefits from the more nutrient-filled eastern Pacific waters.
The neutral part of the cycle - the "normal" component - has been referred to humorously by some as "La Nada", which means "the nothing" in Spanish.