Atmospheric teleconnections, forced planetary waves and blocking
David John Karoly · Australian meteorological magazine · 1983
A brief review is given of some recent observational and theoretical advances in our understanding of the role of the steady, forced, planetary waves in determining anomalies from mean tropospheric conditions. Observational evidence of planetary-scale, horizontal teleconnections in the troposphere and their relationship to blocking episodes in the northern hemisphere is presented. Anomaly patterns similar to some of the observed teleconnections are found in linear, steady-state solutions of numerical models with large-scale thermal or orographic forcing. For appropriate relative positions of the thermal and orographic forcing, the model response east of the forcing may resemble an incipient blocking situation. The wave train pattern of anomalies can be interpreted using simple wave theory as essentially the result of the propagation of stationary, barotropic Rossby waves away from the forcing.