Study makes waves in weather forecasts

Oxford Today - The University Magazine, 16(3), p 40, Trinity Term 2004

A well-known class of atmospheric waves may be affecting the accuracy of weather forecasts, say researchers in the Department of Physics.

Dr Paul Williams and his colleagues looked at the influence of small-scale fluctuations called inertia-gravity waves on simple models of the atmosphere. These waves are common in the lower atmosphere and cause characteristic stripy patterns in the clouds. Conventional weather forecasts disregard these features as being too small to interact with larger systems such as warm and cold fronts.

The Oxford scientists showed that adding weak random noise to the computer model to represent the inertia-gravity waves could lead to large shifts in the patterns of high and low pressure. In an article in Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, they suggest that this noise-based technique could be used to improve weather forecasting.