Life cycles of moist baroclinic eddies

Abstract

Initial states corresponded to climatological winter and summer zonal average states. For most experiments the perturbation had a fundamental zonal wavenumber 7. The wave's vertical motion produced midtropospheric supersaturation whose heating further amplified the vertical motion. Consequently, the largest effects of condensation were associated with vertical transports. Compared to corresponding dry experiments, intensified vertical motions increased the maximum kinetic energy attained by the wave, but they also depleted the eddy available potential energy more rapidly, thus inducing a faster evolution of the life cycle. The hydrological cycle induced by the wave was largely confined to the lower troposphere, but the strongest effects of condensation on eddy dynamics occurred in the upper troposphere, so the condensational heating altered only weakly the intensity of the wave-induced moisture cycle. -from Authors