Theory of airflow over mountains: III - Airstream characteristics

✍ Scribed by R. S. Scorer

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1954
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 758 KB
• Volume: 80
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0035-9009
• DOI: 10.1002/qj.49708034511

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The problem of what second boundary condition (the first being the ground profile) should be applied to the differential equation for the variation with height of the wave amplitude is considered and it is thought that solutions corresponding to upward and downward progressing waves are generally irrelevant. In practice we shall be concerned mainly with those waves of length such that their amplitude decreases with increasing height. Only when there is a considerable range of such wavelenghts is the motion of the kind supposed in the perturation theory.

Though it is desirable to characterize an airstream by a single number this is not at present possible for airstreams in general, and it is shown by examples how airstreams may possess the same lee wave length though their l‐profiles differ considerably. These examples show that generally the maximum amplitude of the waves is found at or close to levels of maximum values of l, at sharp inversions in particular.

The behaviour of lee (statopmaru) waves is fairly representative of mountain waves in general.