Mean fronts and frontogenesis near the Asian east coast

• Main Author: Marlia, J. Christopher
• Other Authors: Barber, David A.
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Fronts (Meteorology)
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1957/28979

The association of frontal formation, development, and movement with large scale baroclinity is well documented. This investigation deals with the mean large-scale baroclinic zones near the Asian East Coast for the last two weeks of February 1975. Two deep, large-scale baroclinic zones are found to be situated along the axis of the zones of high frontal frequencies depicted by previous investigations of the region's frontal climatology. The "southern baroclinic zone" lies along the path of the warm Kuroshio ocean current and beneath the climatological location of the upper level jet stream. A frontogenesis equation is developed to assess the role of mean fields and perturbation fields upon maintaining the mean baroclinity. Analyses contained within demonstrate the various effects of those fields. It is shown that to the north and to the south of the southern baroclinic zone the mean diabatic heating and mean horizontal advection (of mean potential temperature) are the dominant terms in the equation, but that they tend to cancel each other. Within the southern baroclinic zone the frontogenetic effect of the mean diabatic heating term is negligible as is the effect of the perturbation vertical advection term. While the frontogenetic effect of the mean horizontal advection term is smaller within the zone than outside, it is important for the maintenance of the baroclinity there. The effects of mean vertical advection and perturbation horizontal advection were the other important terms within the zone and oppose the effects of the mean horizontal advection term. === Graduation date: 1981