GENERAL

CIRCULATION
GENERAL CIRCULATION
A general circulation model (GCM) is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical
model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes
equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources (radiation, latent
heat). These equations are the basis for computer programs used to simulate the Earth's atmosphere or
oceans. Atmospheric and oceanic GCMs (AGCM and OGCM) are key components along with sea ice and
land-surface components.

GCMs and global climate models are used for weather forecasting, understanding the climate
and forecasting climate change.

Versions designed for decade to century time scale climate applications were originally created
by Syukuro Manabe and Kirk Bryan at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton,
New Jersey.[1] These models are based on the integration of a variety of fluid dynamical, chemical and
sometimes biological equations.
History
In 1956, Norman Phillips developed a mathematical model that could realistically depict
monthly and seasonal patterns in the troposphere. It became the first successful climate model.[2][3]
Following Phillips's work, several groups began working to create GCMs.[4] The first to combine both
oceanic and atmospheric processes was developed in the late 1960s at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory.[1] By the early 1980s, the United States' National Center for Atmospheric
Research had developed the Community Atmosphere Model; this model has been continuously
refined.[5] In 1996, efforts began to model soil and vegetation types.[6] Later the Hadley Centre for
Climate Prediction and Research's HadCM3 model coupled ocean-atmosphere elements.[4] The role
of gravity waves was added in the mid-1980s. Gravity waves are required to simulate regional and
global scale circulations accurately.

Atmospheric and Oceanic models

Atmospheric (AGCMs) and oceanic GCMs (OGCMs) can be coupled to form an atmosphere-
ocean coupled general circulation model (CGCM or AOGCM). With the addition of sub models such as
a sea ice model or a model for evapotranspiration over land, AOGCMs become the basis for a full
climate model.
 The worldwide system of winds, which transports warm air from the equator where
solar heating is greatest towards the higher latitudes, is called the general circulation of the
atmosphere, and it gives rise to the Earth's climate zones.

The general circulation of air is broken up into a number of cells, the most common of
which is called the Hadley cell. Sunlight is strongest nearer the equator. Air heated there rises
and spreads out north and south. After cooling the air sinks back to the Earth's surface within
the subtropical climate zone between latitudes 25 and 40. This cool descending air stabilizes the
atmosphere, preventing much cloud formation and rainfall. Consequently, many of the world's
desert climates can be found in the subtropical climate zone. Surface air from subtropical
regions returns towards the equator to replace the rising air, so completing the cycle of air
circulation within the Hadley cell.

Although the physical reality of Hadley Cells has been questioned, they provide an
excellent means for describing the way in which heat is transported across the Earth by the
movement of air. Other circulation cells exist in the mid-latitudes and polar regions.
 Without the Earth's rotation, air would flow north and south directly across
the temperature difference between low and high latitudes. The effect of the
Coriolis force as a consequence of the Earth's rotation however, is to cause winds to
swing to their right in the Northern Hemisphere, and to their left in the Southern
Hemisphere. Thus the movement of air towards the equator swings to form the
northeast and southeast trade winds of tropical regions. Air flowing towards the
poles forms the westerlies associated with the belt of cyclonic low pressure systems
at about 50 to 60 north and south. In general, where air is found to descend, high
pressure develops, for example at the subtropical latitudes and again near the
poles.

The general circulation serves to transport heat energy from warm

equatorial regions to colder temperate and polar regions. Without such latitudinal
redistribution of heat, the equator would be much hotter than it is whilst the poles
would be much colder.
 Atmospheric circulation is the large-scale movement of air, and together with
ocean circulation is the means by which thermal energy is redistributed on the surface
of the Earth.

The Earth's atmospheric circulation varies from year to year, but the large-scale
structure of its circulation remains fairly constant. The smaller scale weather systems –
mid-latitude depressions, or tropical convective cells – occur "randomly", and long-
range weather predictions of those cannot be made beyond ten days in practice, or a
month in theory (see Chaos theory and Butterfly effect).

The Earth's weather is a consequence of its illumination by the Sun, and the
laws of thermodynamics. The atmospheric circulation can be viewed as a heat engine
driven by the Sun's energy, and whose energy sink, ultimately, is the blackness of
space. The work produced by that engine causes the motion of the masses of air and in
that process, it redistributes the energy absorbed by the Earth's surface near the
tropics to the latitudes nearer the poles, and then to space.
 The large-scale atmospheric circulation "cells" shift polewards in warmer
periods (for example, interglacials compared to glacials), but remain largely
constant as they are, fundamentally, a property of the Earth's size, rotation rate,
heating and atmospheric depth, all of which change little. Over very long time
periods (hundreds of millions of years), a tectonic uplift can significantly alter their
major elements, such as the jet stream, and plate tectonics may shift ocean
currents. During the extremely hot climates of the Mesozoic, a third desert belt
may have existed at the Equator.
Hadley cell

The ITCZ's band of clouds over the Eastern Pacific and the Americas as seen from space
The atmospheric circulation pattern that George Hadley described was an attempt to explain
the trade winds. The Hadley cell is a closed circulation loop which begins at the equator. There,
moist air is warmed by the Earth's surface, decreases in density and rises. A similar air mass
rising on the other side of the equator forces those rising air masses to move poleward. The
rising air creates a low pressure zone near the equator. As the air moves poleward, it cools,
becomes denser, and descends at about the 30th parallel, creating a high-pressure area. The
descended air then travels toward the equator along the surface, replacing the air that rose
from the equatorial zone, closing the loop of the Hadley cell. The poleward movement of the
air in the upper part of the troposphere deviates toward the east, caused by the coriolis
acceleration (a manifestation of conservation of angular momentum). At the ground level,
however, the movement of the air toward the equator in the lower troposphere deviates
toward the west, producing a wind from the east. The winds that flow to the west (from the
east, easterly wind) at the ground level in the Hadley cell are called the Trade Winds.
 Though the Hadley cell is described as located at the equator, in the
northern hemisphere it shifts to higher latitudes in June and July and toward lower
latitudes in December and January, which is the result of the Sun's heating of the
surface. The zone where the greatest heating takes place is called the "thermal
equator". As the southern hemisphere summer is December to March, the
movement of the thermal equator to higher southern latitudes takes place then.

The Hadley system provides an example of a thermally direct circulation.

The power of the Hadley system, considered as a heat engine, is estimated at 200
terawatts.
Ferrel cell
Part of the air rising at 60° latitude diverges at high altitude toward the poles and creates the
polar cell. The rest moves toward the equator where it collides at 30° latitude with the high-level air of
the Hadley cell. There it subsides and strengthens the high pressure ridges beneath. A large part of the
energy that drives the Ferrel cell is provided by the polar and Hadley cells circulating on either side and
that drag the Ferrel cell with it.[2] The Ferrel cell, theorized by William Ferrel (1817–1891), is, therefore,
a secondary circulation feature, whose existence depends upon the Hadley and polar cells on either
side of it. It might be thought of as an eddy created by the Hadley and polar cells.

The air of the Ferrel cell that descends at 30° latitude returns poleward at the ground level,
and as it does so it deviates toward the east. In the upper atmosphere of the Ferrel cell, the air moving
toward the equator deviates toward the west. Both of those deviations, as in the case of the Hadley
and polar cells, are driven by conservation of angular momentum. As a result, just as the easterly Trade
Winds are found below the Hadley cell, the Westerlies are found beneath the Ferrel cell.
 The Ferrel cell is weak, because It has neither a strong source of heat nor a strong sink, so the
airflow and temperatures within it are variable. For this reason, the mid-latitudes are sometimes
known as the "zone of mixing." The Hadley and polar cells are truly closed loops, the Ferrel cell is not,
and the telling point is in the Westerlies, which are more formally known as "the Prevailing Westerlies."
The easterly Trade Winds and the polar easterlies have nothing over which to prevail, as their parent
circulation cells are strong enough and face few obstacles either in the form of massive terrain features
or high pressure zones. The weaker Westerlies of the Ferrel cell, however, can be disrupted. The local
passage of a cold front may change that in a matter of minutes, and frequently does. As a result, at the
surface, winds can vary abruptly in direction. But the winds above the surface, where they are less
disrupted by terrain, are essentially westerly. A low pressure zone at 60° latitude that moves toward the
equator, or a high pressure zone at 30° latitude that moves poleward, will accelerate the Westerlies of
the Ferrel cell. A strong high, moving polewards may bring westerly winds for days.

The Ferrel system acts as a heat pump with a coefficient of performance of 12.1, consuming
kinetic energy from the Hadley and polar systems at an approximate rate of 275 terawatts.
Polar cell

The Polar cell is a simple system with strong convection drivers. Though cool and dry relative
to equatorial air, the air masses at the 60th parallel are still sufficiently warm and moist to undergo
convection and drive a thermal loop. At the 60th parallel, the air rises to the tropopause (about 8 km
at this latitude) and moves poleward. As it does so, the upper level air mass deviates toward the east.
When the air reaches the polar areas, it has cooled and is considerably denser than the underlying air.
It descends, creating a cold, dry high-pressure area. At the polar surface level, the mass of air is driven
toward the 60th parallel, replacing the air that rose there, and the polar circulation cell is complete.
As the air at the surface moves toward the equator, it deviates toward the west. Again, the deviations
of the air masses are the result of the Coriolis effect. The air flows at the surface are called the polar
easterlies.

The outflow of air mass from the cell creates harmonic waves in the atmosphere known as
Rossby waves. These ultra-long waves determine the path of the polar jet stream, which travels
within the transitional zone between the tropopause and the Ferrel cell. By acting as a heat sink, the
polar cell moves the abundant heat from the equator toward the polar regions.
 The Hadley cell and the polar cell are similar in that they are thermally direct; in other
words, they exist as a direct consequence of surface temperatures. Their thermal characteristics
drive the weather in their domain. The sheer volume of energy that the Hadley cell transports,
and the depth of the heat sink that is the polar cell, ensures that the effects of transient
weather phenomena do not only have negligible effect on the system as a whole, but — except
under unusual circumstances — do not form. The endless chain of passing highs and lows which
is part of everyday life for mid-latitude dwellers, at latitudes between 30 and 60° latitude, is
unknown above the 60th and below the 30th parallels. There are some notable exceptions to
this rule. In Europe, unstable weather extends to at least the 70th parallel north.

The polar cell, terrain and Katabatic winds in Antarctica, can create very cold conditions
at the surface, for instance the lowest temperature recorded on Earth: −89.2 °C at Vostok
Station in Antarctica, measured 1983.
•many meso scale phenomena are the result of a thermal circulation:

•thermal circulation - a circulation generated by pressure gradients produced by

differential heating

•thermal circulations tend to be shallow - do not extend up through the depth of the
troposphere

examples of thermal circulations:

◦sea breeze
◦land breeze
◦monsoons
◦mountain and valley breezes
SEA BREEZE
A sea breeze or onshore breeze is any wind that blows from a large body of water toward or onto a
landmass; it develops due to differences in air pressure created by the differing heat capacities of water and dry
land. As such, sea breezes are more localised than prevailing winds. Because land absorbs solar radiation far
more quickly than water, a sea breeze is a common occurrence along coasts after sunrise. By contrast, a land
breeze or offshore breeze is the reverse effect: dry land also cools more quickly than water and, after sunset, a
sea breeze dissipates and the wind instead flows from the land towards the sea. Sea breezes and land breezes
are both important factors in coastal regions' prevailing winds.[1] The term offshore wind may refer to any wind
over open water.

Wind farms are often situated near a coast to take advantage of the normal daily fluctuations of wind
speed resulting from sea or land breezes. While many onshore wind farms and offshore wind farms do not rely
on these winds, a nearshore wind farm is a type of offshore wind farm located on shallow coastal waters to take
advantage of both sea and land breezes. (For practical reasons, other offshore wind farms are situated further
out to sea and rely on prevailing winds rather than sea breezes.)
Cause

The sea has a greater heat capacity than land, so the surface of the sea warms
up more slowly than the land's.[2] As the temperature of the surface of the land rises,
the land heats the air above it by conduction. The warming air expands and becomes
less dense, decreasing the pressure over the land near the coast. The air above the sea
has a relatively higher pressure, causing air near the coast to flow towards the lower
pressure over land. The strength of the sea breeze is directly proportional to the
temperature difference between the land and the sea. If a strong offshore wind is
present (that is, a wind greater than 8 knots (15 km/h)) and opposing the direction of a
possible sea breeze, the sea breeze is not likely to develop.
Effects

Schematic cross section through a sea-breeze front. If the air inland is moist,
cumulus often marks the front. A sea-breeze front is a weather front created by a sea
breeze, also known as a convergence zone. The cold air from the sea meets the
warmer air from the land and creates a boundary like a shallow cold front. When
powerful this front creates cumulus clouds, and if the air is humid and unstable, the
front can sometimes trigger thunderstorms. If the flow aloft is aligned with the
direction of the sea breeze, places experiencing the sea breeze frontal passage will
have benign, or fair, weather for the remainder of the day. At the front warm air
continues to flow upward and cold air continually moves in to replace it and so the
front moves progressively inland. Its speed depends on whether it is assisted or
hampered by the prevailing wind, and the strength of the thermal contrast between
land and sea. At night, the sea breeze usually changes to a land breeze, due to a
reversal of the same mechanisms.
Land breezes

At night, the land cools off faster than the ocean due to differences in their
heat capacity, which forces the dying of the daytime sea breeze as the
temperature of the land approaches that of the ocean. If the land becomes cooler
than the adjacent sea surface temperature, the air pressure over the water will be
lower than that of the land, setting up a land breeze blowing from the land to the
sea, as long as the environmental surface wind pattern is not strong enough to
oppose it. If there is sufficient moisture and instability available, the land breeze
can cause showers, or even thunderstorms, over the water. Overnight
thunderstorm development offshore due to the land breeze can be a good
predictor for the activity on land the following day, as long as there are no
expected changes to the weather pattern over the following 12–24 hours. This is
mainly because the strength of the land breeze is weaker than the sea breeze.[3]
The land breeze will die once the land warms up again the next morning.
Monsoon

Monsoon (/mɒnˈsuːn/) is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by

corresponding changes in precipitation,[1] but is now used to describe seasonal changes in
atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and
sea.[2][3] Usually, the term monsoon is used to refer to the rainy phase of a seasonally changing
pattern, although technically there is also a dry phase. The term is sometimes incorrectly used for
locally heavy but short-term rains,[4] although these rains meet the dictionary definition of
monsoon.

The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African and Asia-Australian
monsoons. The inclusion of the North and South American monsoons with incomplete wind reversal
has been debated.[6]

The term was first used in English in British India and neighbouring countries to refer to the
big seasonal winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the southwest bringing heavy
rainfall to the area.
Mountain breeze and a Valley breeze

A mountain breeze and a valley breeze are two related, localized winds that occur one after
the other on a daily cycle. They are not the same as katabatic winds, which are larger and stronger.

These winds are opposite from each other. While valley breezes occur when the warm air
rises up the sides, warm air in a mountain breeze will rise up the middle.

Mountain and valley breezes form through a process similar to sea and land breezes. During
the day, the sun heats up mountain air rapidly while valley remains relatively cooler. Convection causes
it to rise, causing a valley breeze. At night, the process is reversed. During the night the slopes get
cooled and the dense air descends into the valley as the mountain wind.[1] These breezes occur
mostly during calm and clear weather.Mountain and valley breezes are other examples of local winds
caused by an area’s geography. Campers in mountainous areas may feel a warm afternoon quickly
change into a cold night soon after the sun sets. During the day, the sun warms the air along the
mountain slopes. This warm air rises up the mountain slopes, creating a valley breeze. At nightfall, the
air along the mountain slopes cools. This cool air moves down the slopes into the valley, producing a
mountain breeze.
Earth's rotation

Earth's rotation is the rotation of Planet Earth around its own axis. Earth rotates eastward, in
prograde motion. As viewed from the north pole star Polaris, Earth turns counter clockwise.

The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the
point in the Northern Hemisphere where Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. This point is
distinct from Earth's North Magnetic Pole. The South Pole is the other point where Earth's axis of
rotation intersects its surface, in Antarctica.

Earth rotates once in about 24 hours with respect to the Sun, but once every 23 hours, 56
minutes, and 4 seconds with respect to the stars (see below). Earth's rotation is slowing slightly with
time; thus, a day was shorter in the past. This is due to the tidal effects the Moon has on Earth's
rotation. Atomic clocks show that a modern day is longer by about 1.7 milliseconds than a century
ago,[1] slowly increasing the rate at which UTC is adjusted by leap seconds. Analysis of historical
astronomical records shows a slowing trend of about 2.3 milliseconds per century since the 8th
century BCE.
Among the ancient Greeks, several of the Pythagorean school believed in the rotation of the earth
rather than the apparent diurnal rotation of the heavens. Perhaps the first was Philolaus (470–385
BCE), though his system was complicated, including a counter-earth rotating daily about a central
fire.[3]

A more conventional picture was that supported by Hicetas, Heraclides and Ecphantus in the fourth
century BCE who assumed that the earth rotated but did not suggest that the earth revolved about
the sun. In the third century BCE, Aristarchus of Samos suggested the sun's central place.

However, Aristotle in the fourth century BCE criticized the ideas of Philolaus as being based on
theory rather than observation. He established the idea of a sphere of fixed stars that rotated about
the earth.[4] This was accepted by most of those who came after, in particular Claudius Ptolemy
(2nd century CE), who thought the earth would be devastated by gales if it rotated.
 In 499 CE, the Indian astronomer Aryabhata wrote that the spherical earth rotates about
its axis daily, and that the apparent movement of the stars is a relative motion caused by the
rotation of the Earth. He provided the following analogy: "Just as a man in a boat going in one
direction sees the stationary things on the bank as moving in the opposite direction, in the same
way to a man at Lanka the fixed stars appear to be going westward."

In the 10th century, some Muslim astronomers accepted that the Earth rotates around its
axis.[8] According to al-Biruni, Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi (d. circa 1020) invented an astrolabe called al-zūraqī
based on the idea believed by some of his contemporaries "that the motion we see is due to the
Earth's movement and not to that of the sky."[9][10] The prevalence of this view is further
confirmed by a reference from the 13th century which states: "According to the geometers [or
engineers] (muhandisīn), the earth is in constant circular motion, and what appears to be the
motion of the heavens is actually due to the motion of the earth and not the stars."[9] Treatises
were written to discuss its possibility, either as refutations or expressing doubts about Ptolemy's
arguments against it.[11] At the Maragha and Samarkand observatories, the Earth's rotation was
discussed by Tusi (b. 1201) and Qushji (b. 1403); the arguments and evidence they used resemble
those used by Copernicus.
 In medieval Europe, Thomas Aquinas accepted Aristotle's view[13] and so, reluctantly, did
John Buridan[14] and Nicole Oresme[15] in the fourteenth century. Not until Nicolaus Copernicus in
1543 adopted a heliocentric world system did the contemporary understanding of earth's rotation
begin to be established. Copernicus pointed out that if the movement of the earth is violent, then the
movement of the stars must be very much more so. He acknowledged the contribution of the
Pythagoreans and pointed to examples of relative motion. For Copernicus this was the first step in
establishing the simpler pattern of planets circling a central sun.[16]

Tycho Brahe, who produced accurate observations on which Kepler based his laws, used
Copernicus's work as the basis of a system assuming a stationary earth. In 1600, William Gilbert
strongly supported the earth's rotation in his treatise on the earth's magnetism[17] and thereby
influenced many of his contemporaries.[18] Those like Gilbert who did not openly support or reject the
motion of the earth about the sun are often called "semi-Copernicans".[19] A century after
Copernicus, Riccioli disputed the model of a rotating earth due to the lack of then-observable
eastward deflections in falling bodies;[20] such deflections would later be called the Coriolis effect.
However, the contributions of Kepler, Galileo and Newton gathered support for the theory of the
rotation of the Earth.