Atmospheric circulation
Atmospheric circulation is the large-scale movement of air, and the means (together with the ocean circulation, which is smaller [1]) by which heat is distributed on the surface of the Earth.
The large-scale structure of the atmospheric circulation varies from year to year, but the basic structure remains fairly constant. However, individual weather systems - midlatitude depressions, or tropical convective cells - occur "randomly", and it is accepted that weather cannot be predicted beyond a fairly short limit: perhaps a month in theory, or (currently) about ten days in practice (see Chaos theory). Nonetheless, the average of these systems - the climate - is quite stable.
Latitudinal circulation features
The wind belts and the jet streams girdling the planet are steered by three convection cells: the Hadley cell, the Ferrel cell, and the Polar cell. Note that there is not one discrete Hadley cell, for instance, but several within the equatorial zone which shift, merge, and decouple in a complicated process over time. For descriptive purposes, however, they are generally referred to in the singular.
Hadley cell
The Hadley cell mechanism is well understood. The atmospheric circulation pattern that George Hadley described to provide an explanation for the trade winds matches observations very well. It is a closed circulation loop, which begins at the equator with warm, moist air lifted aloft in equatorial low pressure areas to the tropopause and carried poleward. At about 30°N/S latitude, it descends in a cooler high pressure area. Some of the descending air travels equatorially along the surface, closing the loop of the Hadley cell and creating the Trade Winds.
Though the Hadley cell is described as lying on the equator, it should be noted that it is more accurate to describe it as following the sun’s zenith point, or what is termed the " thermal equator," which undergoes a semiannual north-south migration.
Polar cell
The Polar cell is likewise a simple system. Though cool and dry relative to equatorial air, air masses at the 60th parallel are still sufficiently warm and moist to undergo convection and drive a thermal loop. Air circulates within the troposphere, limited vertically by the tropopause at about 8 km. Warm air rises at lower lattitudes and moves poleward through the upper troposphere. (Remember this happens at both the north and south poles.) When the air reaches the polar areas, it has cooled considerably, and descends as a cold, dry high pressure area, moving away from the pole along the surface but twisting eastward as a result of the Coriolis effect to produce the Polar easterlies.
The outflow from the Polar cell creates harmonic waves in the atmosphere known as Rossby waves. These ultra-long waves play an important role in determining the path of the jet stream, which travels within the transitional zone between the tropopause and the Ferrel cell. By acting as a heat sink, the Polar cell also balances the Hadley cell in the Earth’s energy equation.
It can be argued that the Polar cell is the primary weathermaker for regions above the middle northern latitudes. While Canadians and Europeans may have to deal with occasional heavy summer storms, there is nothing like the arrival of a winter visit from a Siberian high to give one a true appreciation of real cold. In fact, it is the polar high which is responsible for generating the coldest temperature recorded on Earth, -89.2°C at Vostok II Station in 1983 in Antarctica.
The Hadley cell and the Polar cell are similar in that they are thermally direct; in other words, they exist as a direct consequence of surface temperatures as well; their thermal characteristics override the effects of weather in their domain. The sheer volume of energy the Hadley cell transports, and the depth of the heat sink that is the Polar cell ensures, that the effects of transient weather phenomena are not only not felt by the system as a whole, but — except under unusual circumstances — are not even permitted to form. The endless chain of passing highs and lows which is part of everyday life for mid-latitude dwellers is unknown above the 60th and below the 30th parallels.
These atmospheric features are also stable, so even though they may strengthen or weaken regionally or over time, they do not vanish entirely.
Longitudinal circulation features
While the Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar cells are major players in global heat transport, they do not act alone. Disparities in temperature also drive a set of longitudinal circulation cells, and the overall atmospheric motion is known as the zonal overturning circulation.
Latitudinal circulation is the consequence of the fact that incident solar radiation per unit area is highest at the heat equator, and decreases as the latitude increases, reaching its minimum at the poles. Longitudinal circulation, on the other hand, comes about because water has a higher specific heat capacity than land and thereby absorbs and releases heat less readily than land. Even at microscales, this effect is noticeable; it is what brings the sea breeze, air cooled by the water, ashore in the day, and carries the land breeze, air cooled by contact with the ground, out to sea during the night.
On a larger scale, this effect ceases to be diurnal (daily), and instead is seasonal or even decadal in its effects. Warm air rises over the equatorial continental and western Pacific Ocean regions, flows eastward or westward, depending on its location, when it reaches the tropopause, and subsides in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and in the eastern Pacific.
The Pacific Ocean cell plays a particularly important role in Earth's weather. This entirely ocean-based cell comes about as the result of a marked difference in the surface temperatures of the western and eastern Pacific. Under ordinary circumstances, the western Pacific waters are warm and the eastern waters are cool. The process begins when strong convective activity over equatorial East Asia and subsiding cool air off South America's west coast creates a wind pattern which pushes Pacific water westward and piles it up in the western Pacific. (Water levels in the western Pacific are about 60 cm higher than in the eastern Pacific, a difference due entirely to the force of moving air.)
Walker circulation
The Pacific cell is of such importance that it has been named the Walker circulation after Sir Gilbert Walker, an early-20th-century director of British observatories in India, who sought a means of predicting when the monsoon winds would fail. While he was never successful in doing so, his work led him to the discovery of an indisputable link between periodic pressure variations in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which he termed the " Southern Oscillation."
The movement of air in the Walker circulation affects the loops on either side. Under "normal" circumstances, the weather behaves as expected. But every few years, the winters become unusually warm or unusually cold, or the frequency of hurricanes increases or decreases, and the pattern sets in for an indeterminate period.
El Niño - Southern Oscillation
The behaviour of the Walker cell is the key to the riddle, and leads to an understanding of the El Niño (more accurately, ENSO or El Niño - Southern Oscillation) phenomenon.
If convective activity slows in the Western Pacific for some reason (this reason is not currently known), the climate dominoes next to it begin to topple. First, the upper-level westerly winds fail. This cuts off the source of cool subsiding air, and therefore the surface Easterlies cease.
The consequence of this is twofold. In the eastern Pacific, warm water surges in from the west since there is no longer a surface wind to constrain it. This and the corresponding effects of the Southern Oscillation result in long-term unseasonable temperatures and precipitation patterns in North and South America, Australia, and Southeast Africa, and disruption of ocean currents.
Meanwhile in the Atlantic, high-level, fast-blowing Westerlies which would ordinarily be blocked by the Walker circulation and unable to reach such intensities, form. These winds tear apart the tops of nascent hurricanes and greatly diminish the number which are able to reach full strength.
The opposite of an El Niño event is known as a La Niña. In this case, the convective cell over the western Pacific strengthens inordinately, resulting in colder than normal winters in North America, a more robust hurricane season in South-East Asia and Eastern Australia. There is increased upwelling of deep cold ocean waters and more intense uprise of surface air near South America, resulting in increasing numbers of drought occurrence, although it is often argued that fishermen reap benefits from the more nutrient-filled eastern Pacific waters.
The neutral part of the cycle - the "normal" component - has been referred to humorously by some as "La Nada".
Sunrise over the Earth's limb, and a tropical thunderstorm.