Rossby waves, also known as planetary waves, are a natural phenomenon in the atmospheres and oceans of planets that largely owe their properties to rotation of the planet. Rossby waves are a subset of inertial waves. They were first identified by Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby
Who is doing research on the Rossby Waves these days? Some university professors somewhere? NOAA or NASA?
What has changed in the Rossby Waves of the past 14 years? I simply don't believe in coincidence. There has to be a change in the Rossby Waves since the Pacific became so unhinged.
There has to be something different. I know it is there.
Look the thermoclines could be varied now with the surface oceans getting warmer. There is a lot to account for and someone needs to be doing this work.
Chang and Philander were at Princeton University when they wrote this. If they aren't there still researching, then who is? Their work is the baseline before everything started to heat in measurable ways. There was probably some increase in 1989, but, nothing as it is today. There needs to be a comprehensive review of the literature and assessments and conclusions to realize what has changed and what if anything is PREDICTIVE of movement in the Pacific.
Is there a pre-cursor to activity along the Ring of Fire found in the Rossby Waves? If a computer analysis is to be done, it will require the supercomputers to achieve any trending information. I don't own supercomputers. Someone who does needs to do this.
Ping Chang and S. G. H. Philander, "Rossby Wave Packets in barocline mean currents," Deep Sea Research, Part A, Oceanographic Research Papers, Volume 36, Issue 1, January 1989, Pages 17-37.
A WKB description of the propagation of Rossby wave packets in a shallow water model of the tropical oceans indicates that the presence of the baroclinic mean currents can modify the characteristics of wave propagation significantly. For currents with weak latitudinal shear the effect of the current itself is less important than the effect of the associated variations in the depth of the thermocline, except near critical layers where waves are absorbed. For example, a westward current, and the associated shoaling of the thermocline towards the equator, can cause the speed of the long Rossby waves to decrease with decreasing latitude. (The speed increases towards the equator in the absence of mean currents.) Westward currents inhibit meridional propagation, but eastward currents enhance it. The amplification and decay of a wave packet as it propagates through a mean current are described in terms of these conservation of wave action. Implications of these results for the propagation of Rossby waves in the real ocean are discussed.
