Moist Eady waves in a quasigeostrophic three-dimensional model

Abstract

A three-dimensional quasigeostropphic model in which the base state is neutral to moist symmetric stability, following Emanuel et al., is used to obtain the experimental result that the two-dimensional moist Eady waves are the most unstable ones, as was known a priori only for the dry case, from Squire's theorem. The horizontal structure of moist baroclinic waves of nonzero meridional wavenumber presents deviations from the high-low symmetry that it is usually seen in dry models. The evolution of the normal models of the moist Eady model is also followed in the nonlinear regime. -from Author