The quasi-geostrophic β-plane channel model of Holton and Mass (1976) is used to further elucidate the nature of mean flow changes in the stratosphere forced by planetary waves generated in the troposphere. It is shown that wave transience, not dissipation, is the primary mechanism for generating mean flow oscillations. In addition it is shown that the critical wave-forcing amplitude necessary to produce a vacillating response is very sensitive to the initial mean flow profile.
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Holton et al. (1978) studied this question.
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