Transitions Between Blocked and Zonal Flows in a Rotating Annulus with Topography Export

@article{citeulike:2897157, abstract = {The mid-latitude atmosphere is dominated by westerly, nearly zonal flow. Occasionally, this flow is deflected poleward by blocking anticyclones that persist for 10 days or longer. Experiments in a rotating annulus used radial pumping to generate a zonal jet under the action of the Coriolis force. In the presence of two symmetric ridges at the bottom of the annulus, the resulting flows were nearly zonal at high forcing or blocked at low forcing. Intermittent switching between blocked and zonal patterns occurs because of the jet's interaction with the topography. These results shed further light on previous atmospheric observations and numerical simulations.}, author = {Weeks, Eric R. and Tian, Yudong and Urbach, J. S. and Ide, Kayo and Swinney, Harry L. and Ghil, Michael}, citeulike-article-id = {2897157}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5343.1598}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9374453}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=9374453}, day = {28}, doi = {10.1126/science.278.5343.1598}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {geostrophic}, month = {November}, number = {5343}, pages = {1598--1601}, posted-at = {2008-06-15 23:29:14}, priority = {0}, title = {Transitions Between Blocked and Zonal Flows in a Rotating Annulus with Topography}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5343.1598}, volume = {278}, year = {1997} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2897157 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2897157 N2 - The mid-latitude atmosphere is dominated by westerly, nearly zonal flow. Occasionally, this flow is deflected poleward by blocking anticyclones that persist for 10 days or longer. Experiments in a rotating annulus used radial pumping to generate a zonal jet under the action of the Coriolis force. In the presence of two symmetric ridges at the bottom of the annulus, the resulting flows were nearly zonal at high forcing or blocked at low forcing. Intermittent switching between blocked and zonal patterns occurs because of the jet's interaction with the topography. These results shed further light on previous atmospheric observations and numerical simulations. IS - 5343 JF - Science EP - 1601 TI - Transitions Between Blocked and Zonal Flows in a Rotating Annulus with Topography VL - 278 SP - 1598 KW - geostrophic AU - Weeks, Eric AU - Tian, Yudong AU - Urbach, JS AU - Ide, Kayo AU - Swinney, Harry AU - Ghil, Michael PY - 1997/11/28/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.278.5343.1598 ER -