Planetary-Scale Mountain Waves
•Planetary-scale waves
are observed that remain fixed with
respect to the earth’s surface:
•Possible causes are
geographic distribution of:
–Mountains (Charney and
Eliassen 1949)
–Land/sea differences and inequitable distribution of sensible and latent heating (Smagorinsky 1953)
•After 30 years of
debate, answer settled that both are important,
but mountains perhaps a little more so