Atmospheric wave

The mechanism for the forcing of the wave, for example, the generation of the initial or prolonged disturbance in the atmospheric variables, can vary.

Heating effects can be small-scale (like the generation of gravity waves by convection) or large-scale (the formation of Rossby waves by the temperature contrasts between continents and oceans in the Northern hemisphere winter).

When considering a section of a wave along a latitude circle, this is equivalent to a sinusoidal shape.

Spherical harmonics, representing individual Rossby-Haurwitz planetary wave modes, can have any orientation with respect to the axis of rotation of the planet.

[2] Because the propagation of the wave is fundamentally caused by an imbalance of the forces acting on the air (which is often thought of in terms of air parcels when considering wave motion), the types of waves and their propagation characteristics vary latitudinally, principally because the Coriolis effect on horizontal flow is maximal at the poles and zero at the equator.