On the Relationship Between the Madden‐Julian Oscillation and the Hadley and Walker Circulations

Abstract

In reality though, these circulations are far from uniform in the zonal and meridional directions, and show considerable spatial variability, leading to the concept of local Hadley and Walker circulations (e.g., Schwendike et al., 2014, 2015). One of the most important sources of variability in the Tropics is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), which consists of a dipole of enhanced and suppressed convection that moves eastward from the tropical Indian Ocean to the Western Pacific with a period of 30-60 days (e.g., Madden &

Local and Remote Atmospheric Circulation Drivers of Arctic Change: A Review

“…The subtropical jet over the Pacific is enhanced in regions of anomalous upper-tropospheric (anticyclonic; Roundy, 2012) divergence located poleward of MJO convection (Matthews and Kiladis, 1999;Moore et al, 2010). This jet shifts eastward with the MJO propagation, and regions of enhanced convection strengthen the local Hadley circulation, and as upper-tropospheric flow accelerates poleward due to pressure gradient forces, geostrophic adjustments yield troughing downstream of ridging, thereby producing midlatitude Rossby waves that propagate poleward across the Pacific Ocean in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (Schwendike et al, 2021).…”

A Secular Shift of the Madden‐Julian Oscillation and Its Relation to Western Pacific Ocean Warming

“…When the MJO arrives over the Maritime Continent, the regional Walker Circulation can be enhanced within a time scale comparable to the MJO life cycle (Schwendike et al., 2021). The case studies also demonstrate that the coupling between the Walker Circulation and the Kelvin wave around the Maritime Continent could affect the MJO eastward extension (Chen & Wang, 2018b).…”

Analyzing Atmospheric Circulation Patterns Using Mass Fluxes Calculated from Weather Balloon Measurements: North Atlantic Region as a Case Study

“…At any rate, following the apparent resolution by the late-1960s/early-1970s of the debate over the importance of the three cells, much of the focus on "the general circulation of the atmosphere" has shifted towards how these three "meridional overturning circulation cells" interlock with other "circulation patterns". The relationship between the Hadley cell and ENSO, Walker cells, and the monsoons has already been mentioned [56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. It has long been argued that the "summer Hadley cell" is less pronounced due to the influence of the monsoons [41,45] and ENSO [56].…”

“…Indeed, several quasi-periodic regional behaviors have already been established as climatically important across a range of time scales. For example, the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a regionally important tropical atmospheric phenomenon with a quasi-periodicity of 30-60 days (0.08-0.16 years) [65]; the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) is an important oscillation in the net direction of equatorial stratospheric zonal winds with a quasi-periodicity of 27-28 months (2.2-2.3 years) [42]; El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a quasi-periodicity of 2-8 years [56][57][58][59][60][61][62].…”

“…Meanwhile, the relevance of each of the three cells for describing the general circulation has been questioned: Wang et al (2005) argue that the classical "Ferrel cell" is contradicted by modern observations [52]; Qian et al argue that the classical "polar cell" is better split up into two separate mini-cells [53][54][55]; Even for the tropical regions where the clearest "cell" (i.e., the winter Hadley cell) is found, the zonal circulation patterns-including the tropical "Walker cells" and the related El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon-and monsoons are considered to be at least as important for understanding the tropical circulations as the meridional circulation [56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. On this latter point, Schwendike et al argue that the interconnections in the tropics between the Hadley and Walker circulations lead to so much spatial and temporal variability that it is better to partition the tropical circulations into "local Hadley" (i.e., meridional) circulation and "local Walker" (i.e., zonal) circulation components rather than assuming a single "Hadley cell" and "Walker cell" [63][64][65]. Others emphasize that land/ocean differences effectively split up the idealized "global Hadley cell" into several small regionally distinct "cells" separated by regions with non-Hadley circulations [66].…”