Abstract
The excitation of various atmospheric wave motions by switch‐on sources is investigated. An asymptotic description of the propagation of the transient forerunners and the stationary forced motion contained within a Brillouin front is given. Three‐dimensional Rossby waves generated in an unbounded atmosphere by a traveling point source and several kinds of oscillating point sources are discussed. Also given is the solution for the switch‐on of a horizontally traveling gravity wave or vertically traveling atmospheric acoustic wave. Various one‐dimensional switch‐on Rossby wave problems in a periodic domain are solved in terms of image sources.