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Generalized Moist Potential Vorticity and Its Application In The Analysis of Atmospheric Flows

Abstract

Potential vorticity (PV) serves as an important dynamic tracer for large-scale motions in the atmosphere and oceans. Significant progress has been made on the understanding and application of PV since the work of Hoskins et al., who introduced an “IPV thinking” of a dynamical system in a purely dry atmosphere. In particular, there has been a substantial amount of work done on the PV in a general moist atmosphere. In this paper, the generalized moist potential vorticity (GMPV) and its application in the mesoscale meteorological fields are reviewed. The GMPV is derived for a real atmosphere (neither completely dry nor saturated) by introducing a generalized potential temperature instead of the potential temperature or equivalent potential temperature. Such a generalization can depict the moist effect on PV anomaly in the non-uniformly saturated atmosphere. The effect of mass forcing induced by rainfall on the anomaly of GMPV is also reviewed and a new dynamic variable, the convective vorticity vector (CVV), is introduced in connection with GMPV.

Article / Publication Data
Active/Online
YES
Volume
19
Available Metadata
Accepted On
July 16, 2008
DOI ↗
Fiscal Year
Publication Name
Prog. Natural Sci
Published On
March 01, 2009
Publisher Name
Eslevier
Print Volume
19
Print Number
3
Submitted On
May 16, 2008

Institutions

Not available

Author

Authors who have authored or contributed to this publication.