On the kinetic energy budget of the summer-mean flow at 200 mb in the tropics

Tsing-Chang Chen

doi:10.3402/tellusa.v34i1.10787

On the kinetic energy budget of the summer-mean flow at 200 mb in the tropics

Tellus

Volume 34 (1982): Issue 1

By: Tsing-Chang Chen

Open Access

|Jan 1982

Abstract

The 200-mb wind data of the 1967 summer in the tropics is used to analyze the kinetic energy budget of the tropical time-mean flow. The horizontal distributions of the kinetic energy variables in the tropics are investigated and compared with the midlatitude studies of Holopainen (1978) and Lau (1979).

The results reveal that the large-valued transient kinetic energy extends from the maximum core to the downstream of the tropical easterly jet. The maximum kinetic energy of the tropical time-mean flow goes hand in hand with this jet core. The relative locations of the maximum kinetic energy of the time-mean and transient flows in the tropics differ from those in the midlatitudes. The geographic distributions of horizontal fluxes of kinetic energy in the tropics shown in this study and the vertical circulations in the upstream and downstream sides of the tropical easterly jet shown by Krishnamurti (1971a, b) indicate that the kinetic energetics of the tropical easterly jet may be similar to that of the westerly jet in the midlatitudes.

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