Arctic Meteorology: (A Ten-Year Review)

Publisher Summary The chapter presents some of the major new ideas concerning the Arctic circulation supplemented by a brief review of the literature to serve as background for the coming IGY contributions. For many years, the Arctic region is the scene of interesting features in the atmospheric circulation and, therefore, deserves special attention. Progress in meteorology has always been dependent upon direct observations. In the past 25 years since the advent of the radiosonde in the Arctic, a good station network has gradually grown. Because of the very large amount of material, the chapter is concerned with two major advances: the general circulation as shown by new mean stratospheric maps and the phenomena of sudden temperature and wind changes. The chapter briefly mentions papers that have appeared in some of the other phases of Arctic meteorology for the convenience of those wishing to locate recent work in particular aspects of the subject. The unsolved problems of Arctic meteorology are largely those of meteorology in general that observing facilities in the Arctic are able to describe the atmosphere almost as well as in mid-latitudes. Each of the topics mentioned in the chapter is thus a problem requiring research. However, of greatest interest are probably those questions that always lie just above the levels where one can observe regularly. In this instance, these are the large-scale features of the middle stratosphere and above, through which there is hope of further explaining the “unusual” features found at high latitudes.