A Servomechanism in the Ocean/Atmosphere System of the Mid-Latitude North Pacific

Abstract

During the autumn and winter seasons, large amounts of heat are given up to the atmosphere at the subarctic frontal zone off the east coast of Asia. According to Fisher, the Laplacian of this heat flux (∇2Q) is related to increases in the intensity of the relative vorticity in the westerly wind regime. This increase is related to a similar increase in strength of the wind stress curl, which thereby increases the Sverdrup transport of the subarctic and subtropical gyres. The increase in transport in turn intensifies ∇2Q at the subarctic frontal zone via geostrophic adjustment. This coupling of atmospheric relative vorticity, Sverdrup transport, and ∇2Q results in the intensification of the relative vorticity of both fluid media that can be checked only by an instability in either one or the other media. This mutual interaction of the ocean and atmosphere is termed a servomechanism, the natural time scales of which are determined by a mathematical development wherein the vertically integrated vorticity equations of the ocean and atmosphere are coupled by their interaction at the naviface. This coupling leads to a single wave equation for the ocean/atmosphere system, the solutions of which are Rossby waves modulated by exp[(1+i)αt)], where α depends upon the coupling parameters. Normal values of α are found to produce an e-folding increase in the vorticity of the ocean/atmosphere system in less than two months. For anomalously high values of α, the increase in vorticity can be extreme, possibly leading to the formation of a barotropic instability in the atmospheric medium. These theoretical results are illustrated using geophysical data from 1950–60 and are used to explain the events that triggered the unusual ocean/atmospheric vorticity state that existed in the North Pacific between 1956 and 1958.