Utility of Hovmöller diagrams to diagnose Rossby wave trains

The study investigates and compares various methods that aim to diagnose Rossby wave trains with the help of Hovm¨ oller diagrams. Three groups of methods are distinguished: The first group contains trough-and-ridge Hovm¨ oller diagrams of the meridional wind; they provide full phase information, but differ in the method for latitudinal averaging or weighting. The second group aims to identify Rossby wave trains as a whole, discounting individual troughs and ridges. The third group contains diagnostics which focus on physical mechanisms during the different phases of a Rossby wave train life cycle; they include the analysis of eddy kinetic energy and methods for quantifying Rossby wave brea…