X-Sender: molinari@atmos.albany.edu Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 17:29:37 +0000 To: David Schultz , map@atmos.albany.edu, map_disco@nssl.noaa.gov, ddowell@ou.edu, hblue@ou.edu, wicker@nssl.noaa.gov From: John Molinari Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: [Map_disco] Re: map discussion items: The Kicker and the Kickee X-BeenThere: map_disco@optical X-Mailman-Version: 2.0beta5 List-Id: Dave, Excellent questions on Henry's rule. I have often wondered about the process by which one trough "kicks out" another. My view (which is relatively uninformed--I think about the tropics!) is that the PV arguments may be the easiest to understand, i.e., there are no simpler diagnostics than a (QG) PV inversion. If the upstream trough gets close enough to advect the other, i.e., to induce winds over the other, that would be the reasoning that is easiest to understand. PV is really the ultimate synoptician's tool. But that explanation is almost a kinematic one, and the "real" dynamical reason may involve complex wave-wave interactions. That may be territory that theoreticians have not yet worked out, involving multiple scales of motion interacting. It seems that even the most common synoptic behaviors are not easy to account for by existing theory. That has certainly been my experience in the subtropics. Keep asking the good questions! Cheers, John