Abstract
Abstract To elucidate his numerical technique and to examine the effectiveness of geostrophic initial winds, Lewis Fry Richardson carried out an idealized forecast using the linear shallow-water equations and simple analytical pressure and velocity fields. This barotropic forecast has been repeated and extended using a global numerical model, and the results are presented in this paper. Richardson's conclusions regarding the use of geostrophic winds as initial data are reconsidered. An analysis of Richardson's data into normal modes shows that almost 85% of the energy is accounted for by a single eigenmode, the gravest symmetric rotational Hough mode, which travels westward with a period of about five days. This five-day wave has been detected in analyses of stratospheric data. It is striking that the fields chosen by Richardson on considerations of smoothness should so closely resemble a natural oscillation of the atmosphere. The numerical model employed in this study uses an implicit differencing techni...
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