Different wave types occur in a laboratory experiment modelling the mid-latitude atmosphere.

What is it about?

Laboratory experiments are used to explore the fundamental factors that determine the behaviour of phenomena occurring in nature. The mid-latitude circulation of the Earth atmosphere and planetary waves are captured by the differentially heated rotating annulus experiment in which only the meridional temperature​ gradient of the terrestrial atmosphere between the poles and the equator and the planetary rotation are used as forcing. In the present work, we study a modified version of this experiment, in which a vertical salinity stratification is also present. This configuration better resembles the planetary’s atmospheric troposphere and stratosphere and is therefore used to study the interaction of small-scale and large-scale waves.

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Why is it important?

For the first time, the simultaneous occurrence of different wave types is reported in detail for a differentially heated rotating annulus experiment. The setup proposed is suitable to study interactions of different wave types and offers the possibility to investigate wave propagation between the different layers.