[FRIAM] Potential Vorticity and the Dynamic Tropopause

[Nicholas Thompson]

Hi, Phellow Phriammers,  Nick, here.






I have been lost in the weather.  This publication,


https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:d481610b-e5d5-4a03-879c-6db6ec1d5e4a


with its glorious eye-candy, is an example of what seems to be a new
perspective in meteorology, the DT-PV perspective.  PV refers to a
parameter, potential vorticity, which seems to be a measure of how liable
the atmosphere is to churn; DT refers to the DYNAMIC tropopause.  The
tropopause is the transition zone between the stratosphere and our own
layer, the troposphere, through which gas exchange is limited because the
lapse rate of the troposphere  -- its decline in temperature with fall of
pressure -- is reversed in the stratosphere.   In the Bad Old Days, we were
taught that the tropopause was like a ceiling, tilted upward from the poles
to the tropics.  Now we have begun to think of it as more like a tent fly,
still tilted up equator-ward, but loose and floppy and buffeted up and down
by the jetstreams’ winds. These floppings up and down have the power to
destabilize the lower atmosphere and lead to bad weather, if conditions
there are ripe.



This is not one of my usual cries for help.  I have some good tutors.
However, I would love to hear from others whom this paper interests.  In
particular I am struggling with the notion of potential vorticity, whose
formula seems to take many odd forms.



Best,



Nick





Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology

Clark University,

nthompson at clarku.edu
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