• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.936-946
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• 2007

Analytical geopotential field in balance with the sectoral mode (the first symmetric mode with respect to the equator) of the Rossby-Haurwitz wave on the inclined rotation axis was derived in presence of superrotation background flow. The balanced field was obtained by inverting the divergence equation with the time derivative being zero. The inversion consists of two steps, i.e., the evaluation of nonlinear forcing terms and the finding of analytical solutions based on the Poisson's equation. In the second step, the forcing terms in the from of Legendre function were readily inverted due to the fact that Legendre function is the eigenfunction of the spherical Laplacian operator, while other terms were solved either by introducing a trial function or by integrating the Legendre equation. The balanced field was found to be expressed with six zonal wavenumber components, and shown to be of asymmetric structure about the equator. In association with asymmetricity, the advantageous point of the balanced field as a validation method for the numerical model was addressed. In special cases where the strength of the background flow is a half of or exactly the same as the rotation rate of the Earth it was revealed that one of the zonal wavenumber components vanishes. The analytical balanced field was compared with the geopotential field which was obtained using a spherical harmonics spectral model. It was found that the normalized difference lied in the order of machine rounding, indicating the reliability of the analytical results. The stability of the sectoral mode of Rossby-Haurwitz wave and the associated balanced field was discussed, comparing with the flrst antisymmetric mode.

• Atmosphere
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2013

The angular momentum transport of an idealized axisymmetric vortex in the developing stage was investigated using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. The balanced axisymmetric vortex was constructed based on an empirical function for tangential wind, and the temperature, geopotential, and surface pressure were obtained from the balanced equation. The numerical simulation was carried out for 6 days on the f-plane with the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) set as constant. The weak vortex at initial time was intensified with time, and reached the strength of tropical cyclone in a couple of days. The Absolute Angular Momentum (AAM) was transported along with the secondary circulation of the vortex. Total AAM integrated over a cylinder of radius of 2000 km decreased with simulation time, but total kinetic energy increased rapidly. From the budget analysis, it was found that the surface friction is mainly responsible for the decrease of total AAM. Also, contribution of the surface friction to the AAM loss was about 90% while that of horizontal advection was as small as 8%. The trajectory of neutral numerical tracers following the secondary circulation was presented for the Lagrangian viewpoint of the transports of absolute angular momentum. From the analysis using the trajectory of tracers it was found that the air parcel was under the influence of the surface friction continuously until it leaves the boundary layer near the core. Then the air parcel with reduced amount of angular momentum compared to its original amount was transported from boundary layer to upper level of the vortex and contributed to form the anti-cyclone. These results suggest that the tropical cyclone loses angular momentum as it develops, which is due to the dissipation of angular momentum by the surface friction.