What is meridional transport?
The mean meridional circulation and eddies transport water and play an important role in determining the nature of the hydrologic cycle. Atmospheric eddies move water vapor from the tropics and supply it to middle and high latitudes (Fig. 6.10).
What is meridional temperature gradient?
The meridional gradients are calculated as the latitudinal differential change between 10° and 17°N, over the same longitude. Then, the result is averaged for all the longitudes within the area enclosed by 83°–63°W. The SST area average is estimated for the same region.
How does zonal flow differ from meridional flow?
Zonal flow is defined as west to east or east to west, while meridional flow indicates north-to-south or south-to-north air motion. Zonal flow is typically associated with relatively weak troughs and ridges, and thus relatively quiet weather.
What causes meridional flow?
When the winds cross the latitude lines at a sharp angle, the wind pattern is termed meridional. In a meridional pattern the jet stream will have highly amplified troughs and ridges. Low pressure systems tend to move faster (west to east) when associated with a zonal flow.
What is zonal and meridional winds?
Zonal flow is defined as west to east or east to west, while meridional flow indicates north-to-south or south-to-north air motion.
What is meridional section?
The meridional section plane is a section through the centre of rotation of an impeller.
What is the difference between meridional and zonal circulation?
Zonal flow follows a pattern along latitudinal lines, latitudinal circles or in the west–east direction. Meridional flow follows a pattern from north to south, or from south to north, along the Earth’s longitude lines, longitudinal circles (meridian) or in the north–south direction.
What is meridional winds?
The wind or wind component along the local meridian, as distinguished from the zonal wind. In a horizontal coordinate system fixed locally with the x axis directed eastward and the y axis northward, the meridional wind is positive if from the south, and negative if from the north.
What is meridional cell?
A very large-scale convection circulation in the atmosphere or ocean that takes place in a meridional plane, with northward and southward currents in opposite branches of the cell, and upward and downward motion in the equatorward and poleward ends of the cell.