Department of Earth System Science

The nonlinear behavior of planetary waves excited by midlatitude topography is considered in an atmospheric GCM. The GCM is run at standard resolution (T42) and includes all of the complexity normally associated with a GCM. Only two simplifications are made to the model. First, it is run in perpetual January mode, so that the solar radiation takes the diurnally varying value associated with 15 January. Second, the lower boundary is simplified so that it is entirely ocean with zonally symmetric SSTs. Planetary waves are excited by Gaussian-shaped topography centered at 45°N, 90°W. As in earlier studies, the excited wave train propagates toward low latitudes where, for sufficiently large forcing amplitude (i.e., height of topography), the wave will break. Several different experiments are run with different mountain heights. Each experiment is run for a total of 4015 days.

The response of the model depends on the height of the mountain. For the small-amplitude mountain (500 m), the wave is dissipated at low latitudes near its critical latitude. For large-amplitude mountains (2000, 3000, and 4000 m), wave breaking and nonlinear reflection out of the wave breaking region is observed. The spatial character of the reflected wave train is similar to that detected in earlier studies with more idealized models.