The influence of the polar night jet on the tropospheric circulation in a GCM.

Abstract

It is shown that there are significant differences in the tropospheric simulation when the polar night jet is changed. Planetary wave theory leads us to expect that this will be the case for the stationary planetary waves; however, the changes found here extend to the transient eddies as well and to all scales in the model. The degree of trapping of the planetary waves in the troposphere is determined by the strength and structure of the polar night jet, resulting in the sensitivity of the troposphere to that structure. The results indicate that inaccuracies in the stratospheric simulations of any general circulation model will produce serious errors in the planetary waves and therefore in the general eddy properties of the model.-from Authors