The General Circulation of the Atmosphere in the Light of the Theory of Turbulent Motion (1)

[摘要] H. Jeffreys' theory on the maintenance of westerly currents in middle and higher latitudes is reexamined from another point of view. He discussed the general circulation of the atmosphere based on the idea of geostrophic wind and arrived at the conclusion that there prevail the high pressure areas near the polar regions and the low pressure over the equatorial region, which, however, contradicts with to the actual atmosphere. The frictional term is only neglected and Jeffreys emphasized that frictional effect is sufficient enough to destroy the easterly wind theoretically deduced and creat the westerly wind. (In Oberbeck's theory such a difficulty does not occur, since in his theory the westerlies prevails throughout the latitudes in case of no friction.) The present author reexamined this theory by making use of H. Lettau's result recently published (Luftmassen-und Energieaustausch zwischen niederen and hohen Breiten der Nordhalbkugel während des Polarjahres 1932/33 Beitr. z. Phys. d. f. Atm., Bd. 23, 1935) and concluded that the supply of angular momentum through “grosse Austausch” just cancels, with the energy dissipation due to skin friction.Thermodynamically speaking the circulation in temperate latitudes denotes “eine arbeitvernichtende Maschine, ” but this difficulty may be removed to some degree by the supply of angular momentum through “grosse Austausch” element as a cyclone or an anticyclone.

[学科分类] 大气科学