On the mean meridional circulation of the middle atmosphere

A zonally averaged, quasi-geostrophic residual Eulerian model is used to illustrate how the adjustment of the middle atmosphere to externally imposed forcing depends on internal dissipative properties (parameterized as Newtonian cooling α and Rayleigh friction K_R) and on the periodicity of the forcing. It is shown that many well-known properties of the stratosphere/mesosphere system (e.g., the relative efficiency of wave versus diabatic driving of the meridional circulation, and the near radiative equilibrium of much of the stratosphere) are succinctly expressed in terms of the governing elliptic differential equation and its solutions. -from Author