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Title

Mesoscale energy spectra of moist baroclinic waves

Abstract

The role of moist processes in the development of the mesoscale kinetic energy spectrum is investigated with numerical simulations of idealized moist baroclinic waves. Dry baroclinic waves yield upper-tropospheric kinetic energy spectra that resemble a -3 power law. Decomposition into horizontally rotational and divergent kinetic energy shows that the divergent energy has a much shallower spectrum, but its amplitude is too small to yield a characteristic kink in the total spectrum, which is dominated by the rotational part. The inclusion of moist processes energizes the mesoscale. In the upper troposphere, the effect is mainly in the divergent part of the kinetic energy; the spectral slope remains shallow (around -5/3) as in the dry case, but the amplitude increases with increasing humidity. The divergence field in physical space is consistent with inertia-gravity waves being generated in regions of latent heating and propagating throughout the baroclinic wave. Buoyancy flux spectra are used to diagnose the scale at which moist forcing--via buoyant production from latent heating--injects kinetic energy. There is significant input of kinetic energy in the mesoscale, with a peak at scales of around 800 km and a plateau at smaller scales. If the latent heating is artificially set to zero at some time, the enhanced divergent kinetic energy decays over several days toward the level obtained in the dry simulation. The effect of moist forcing of mesoscale kinetic energy presents a challenge for theories of the mesoscale spectrum based on the idealization of a turbulent inertial subrange.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ws8v3v

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eng

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geoscientificInformation

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publication

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2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

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2013-04-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2013 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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OpenSky Support

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UCAR/NCAR - Library

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PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

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opensky@ucar.edu

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http://opensky.ucar.edu/

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