The singular-vector structure of the atmospheric global circulation

Abstract

The local phase-space instability of the atmospheric global circulation is characterized by its (nonmodal) singular vectors. The formulation of singular vector analysis is described. The relations between singular vectors, normal modes, adjoint modes, Lyapunov vectors, perturbations produced by the so-called breeding method, and wave psuedomomentum are outlined. Techniques to estimate the dominant part of the singular spectrum using large-dimensional primitive equation models are discussed. Results are described, based first on statistics of routine calculations made between December 1992 and August 1993, and second on three specific case studies. -from Authors