INTEGRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GLOBAL WIND FIELD. 2. THE INTENSITY OF WESTERLY AND EASTERLY CIRCULATION

D. Yu. Gushchina, M. A. Petrosyants, and E. V. Sokolikhina

The global wind field is analyzed in terms of meridional gradients of zonal wind in both hemispheres and at various pressure surfaces. A measure of the circulation intensity is the gradient of the zonal wind velocity circulation along the latitude circle, i.e., a change in the velocity circulation of the zonal wind per 1ºlatitude. The intensity of the westerly circulation in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere and easterly circulation in the tropics at 500 and 850 hPa is estimated for different seasons. A description of the intensity of the zonal atmospheric circulation through the gradient of the velocity circulation of zonal wind along latitude circles gives a compact method for estimating differences between the global wind fields in midlatitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The circulation gradient demonstrates a complicated character of the easterly circulation in the tropics, at both 850 hPa and 500 hPa, which cannot be found by a simple analysis of the wind fields.