Advisor

• Main Authors: James J. Benedict, David A. Randall, Wayne H. Schubert, David W. J. Thompson, Jorge A. Ramirez (civil Engineering
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the vertical; Arctic; Indian; Pacific
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.519.7579; http://kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu/rr/groupPIX/jim/prospectus.pdf

The Tropics act as an engine that drives global atmospheric circulation patterns. Greater than one-third of Earth’s precipitation falls within 15 ° of the Equator, and three-fourths of the total energy fueling planetary-scale atmospheric circulations is derived from tropical latent heat release as clouds and precipitation form (Simpson et al. 1988, Kummerow et al. 2000). Cloud systems are ubiquitous in the Tropics and are a critical component in the local and global energy budgets. Clouds are not only involved in latent heat release, they also alter the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of radiation absorption and emission. A firm understanding of tropical atmospheric variability and its structure is therefore necessary for a wide range of weather and climate studies. Tropical precipitating systems are organized into several wave types with characteristic space and time scales (Matsuno 1966, Wheeler and Kiladis 1999). One such atmospheric disturbance is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO; Madden and Julian 1994). The MJO is characterized by a slow (5 m/s) eastward propagation of anomalous deep convection and its associated Kelvin-Rossby wave response in the Indian and West Pacific Ocean areas. Although the disturbance tends to weaken near the dateline as deep convection decouples from the wave dynamics, its signal often continues eastward as a fast-moving (15-50 m/s) dry Kelvin wave (Lin et al. 2005). The MJO dominates atmospheric variability within the equatorial regions on intraseasonal (20-100 day) timescales (Wheeler and Kiladis 1999) and involves numerous variables and physical processes. Figure 1 depicts the general vertical and temporal structures of an MJO disturbance. The MJO has been linked to monsoons, El Niño, tropical cyclone frequency in all ocean basins, significant midlatitude weather events, and even the Arctic and