大气Rossby波的发现和大气长波理论的建立在大气科学发展过程中起着非常重要的作用，它不但对大气动力学和气候动力学研究具有里程碑式的意义，而且奠定了数值天气预报的理论基础，在某种程度上使气象学成为一门真正意义的科学。简要回顾并讨论了罗斯贝本人是如何发现Rossby波及推导出大气长波相速度公式的过程，着重分析了大气长波理论在20世纪四五十年代的主要发展过程，力图展现罗斯贝在提出大气长波理论中所表现出的高度物理直觉和对现实的抽象、建模能力。希望对当今的大气科学研究有所借鉴，对气象科研工作者有所启发。

The discovery of the atmospheric long wave (Rossby wave) together with the establishment of the related theory is an important milestone in the history of meteorology. The ideas beneath atmospheric long wave dynamics are deeply and widely permeated in modern dynamical meteorology and climate dynamics. It serves as a theoretical basis for the numerical weather prediction and in a sense, turns meteorology into a science in name and in fact. This paper briefly reviews how Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby discovered the atmospheric long wave and derived its phase speed from his theory. The emphasis is mainly on the process and the scientific methods during the development of the atmospheric long wave theory in 1940s and 1950s, so that readers can realize the physical intuition from a higher plane and the excellent mathematical treatment of Rossby. By this means, it is hoped that both meteorologists and young students could be motivated.