TROPICAL GRAVITY-ATMOSPHERIC LONG WAVE AND THE WALKER CIRCULATION

Orders of magnitude of terms related to earth’s rotation in linearized vorticity and divergence equations governing tropical large-scale motion are analysed. It is discovered that βyD and βyξ are smaller by one order than βv and βu respectively and then may be neglected. On this basis, tropical wave motions are discussed. It is found that there exists a kind of gravity-atmospheiic long waves which is non-vorticit atmospheric long wave, whereas the Kelvin wave is essentially the gravity-atmospheric long wave with its velocity being much lower than that of gravity. Computation shows that there also exists a kind of large-scale slow waves whose moving speed is lower by one order of magnitude than that of Kelvin wave. Such slow wave is likely to be the Walker Circulation.