Knowledge of the global distribution of heating is important for understanding
the earth's planetary circulation. The advances in development and application
of four-dimensional global data assimilation during and since the Global Weather
Experiment (GWE), from December 1978 through November 1979, provided the
means for studies of the global distributions of heating. Although uncertainty
remains in the magnitude and temporal variability of heating, a qualitative
understanding of the large-scale features has emerged.
The following distributions have been filtered to retain wavelengths greater than 10,000 km to portray the seasonal migration of the monsoons and the impact of continent - ocean basin contrasts.
1. Four Seasons (units,
K/day) (GIF format ~ 23 Kb)
2. Seasonal Cycle (units, K/day) (FLI format animation, ~ 435 Kb)
Software for running FLI animations
Interannual Variability
The following distributions of vertically averaged heating for 1986, 1987 and 1988 have been filtered to retain wavelengths greater than 4,000 km to portray the interannual variability of the large scale atmospheric heating.
January and July (units, K/day ~ 25 Kb)
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