100 Years of Progress in Understanding the General Circulation of the Atmosphere

Some of the advances of the past century in our understanding of the general circulation of the atmosphere have recently been surveyed in a chapter included in the Meteorological Monographs Anniversary addition, with a primary focus on the period beginning with the midcentury breakthrough in baroclinic instability and quasigeostrophic dynamics. Given time constriants, this presentation will be restricted to some key aspects of the evolution of our understanding of the zonally averaged zonal winds, specifically the qualitative structure of the eddy momentum fluxes, as well as the controls on the Hadley cell and subtropical jet.