J. Atmos. Sci., 1989, vol.46, 2466-2468.
Paper (PDF 244KB)
Abstract. The simple model of tropical atmospheric
circulation put forward by Gill (1980) has come into widespread use for
studies of tropical air-sea interaction. Gill motivates the model in terms
of internal modes of an atmosphere with a lid, forced by diabatic heating.
For models of tropical air-sea interaction, it is necessary to parameterize
this forcing in terms of the sea surface temperature (SST) in some fashion.
In the model of Lindzen and Nigam (1987) boundary layer temperatures are
strongly tied to SST by turbulent vertical mixing. They introduce a term
which they refer to as the 'back-pressure' effect. When this term is included,
they point out that their model resembles the Gill model but with the forcing
in the momentum equations rather than in the height equation, and with
a very much larger damping coefficient in this equation than in Gill's version.
The present author indicates that the analogy to the Gill model can be extended
to include the forcing term and to discuss the implications of this for
interpretation of the atmospheric side of the tropical air-sea coupling problem.
© Copyright 1989 by the American Meteorological Society.
Acknowledgments.
This note was encouraged by discussions with R. S. Lindzen. Support from NSF Grant
ATM-8520354 and the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council is
gratefully acknowledged.
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