Refraction of Rossby waves on a multiple β-plane

A multiple β-plane is introduced to explore the relation between plane and spherical Rossby waves. The fundamental problem, the refraction of a plane Rossby wave across a discontinuity in β, is solved. It is shown that refraction on the multiple β-plane agrees in the limit with refraction on the full sphere only if a suitable correction is made for the geometric distortion of the β-plane. The full spherical modes of Rossby waves trapped in a band about the equator (Longuet-Higgins, 1964) have their counterpart in a simple model consisting of an “equatorial” β-plane bounded above and below by “polar” β-planes.