Numerical Results From a Nine-Level General Circulation Model of the Atmosphere1

The “primitive equations of motion” are adopted for this study. The nine levels of the model are distributed so as to resolve surface boundary layer fluxes as well as radiative transfer by ozone, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. The lower boundary is a kinematically uniform land surface without any heat capacity. The stabilizing effect of moist convection is implicitly incorporated into the model by requiring an adjustment of the lapse rate whenever it exceeds the moist adiabatic value. The numerical integrations are performed for the mean annual conditions over a hemisphere starting with an isothermal atmosphere at rest. The spatial distribution of gaseous absorbers is assumed to have the annual mean value of the actual atmosphere and to be constant with time. A quasi-equilibrium is attained about which a cyclic energy variation occurs with an irregular period of about 2 weeks. The dominant wave number of the meridional component of the wind is 5 to 6 in the troposphere but is reduced to about 3 in the stratosphere. The gross structure and behavior of the tropopause and stratosphere below 30 km. agree reasonably well with observation. The meridional circulation obtained from the computation has a 3-cell structure in the troposphere and tends toward a 2-cell structure with increasing altitude in the stratosphere. Although the level of the jet stream as well as that of the maximum northward transport of momentum coincides with observation, the intensity of the jet stream turns out to be much stronger than the observed annual mean. In the stratosphere the temperature increases with increasing latitude because of the effect of large-scale motion. The magnitude of the increase, however, is smaller than that observed. A detailed study of the vertical distribution of the budget of kinetic energy, of available potential energy, of heat, and of angular momentum is made. The mechanism for maintaining the kinetic energy of the jet stream and of the stratosphere is discussed. It is concluded that in the model the kinetic energy in the stratosphere is maintained against its conversion into potential energy and dissipation through interaction with the troposphere, which is in qualitative agreement with the results derived from an analysis of the actual atmosphere. In the troposphere, the conversion of potential energy reaches a maximum at about the 500-mb. level. This energy is then transferred to the level of the jet stream and to the surface boundary layer by the so-called pressure interaction term, thus providing the source of kinetic energy for these two levels at which dissipation is predominant. As with the results of Phillips 27 and Smagorinsky 37, the ratio of eddy kinetic energy to zonal kinetic energy and that of eddy to zonal available potential energy are computed to be much smaller than those of the actual atmosphere.