The Effects of Mountains on the General Circulation of the Atmosphere as Identified by Numerical Experiments

Abstract

Abstract In order to identify the effects of mountains upon the general circulation of the atmosphere, a set of numerical experiments is performed by use of a general circulation model developed at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of NOAA. The numerical time integrations of the model are performed with and without the effects of mountains. By comparing the structure of the model atmospheres that emerged from these two numerical experiments, it is possible to discuss the role of mountains in maintaining the stationary and transient disturbances in the atmosphere. The model adopted for this study has a global computational domain and covers both the troposphere and stratosphere. For the computation of radiative transfer, the distribution of incoming solar radiation in January is assumed. Over the ocean, the observed distribution of the sea surface temperature of February is assumed as a lower boundary condition of the model. Over the continental surface, temperature is determined such that the cond...