Eady Solitary Waves: A Theory of Type B Cyclogenesis

Abstract

Localized baroclinic instability in a weakly nonlinear, long-wave limit using an Eady model is studied. The resulting evolution equations have a form of the KdV type, including extra terms representing linear coupling. Baroclinic instability is triggered locally by the collision between two neutral solitary waves (one trapped at the upper boundary and the other at the lower boundary) if their incident amplitudes are sufficiently large. This characteristic is explained from the viewpoint of resonance when the relative phase speed, which depends on the amplitudes, is less than a critical value. The upper and lower disturbances grow in a coupled manner (resembling a normal-mode structure) initially, but they reverse direction slowly as the amplitudes increase, and eventually separate from each other. The motivation of this study is to investigate a type of extratropical cyclogenesis that involves a preexisting upper trough (termed as Type B development) from the viewpoint of resonant solitary waves. Two cases are of particular interest. First, the author examines a case where an upper disturbance preexists over an undisturbed low-level waveguide. The solitary waves exhibit behavior similar to that conceived by Hoskins et al. for Type B development; the lower disturbance is forced one sidedly by a preexisting upper disturbance initially, but in turn forces the latter once the former attains a sufficient amplitude, thus resulting in mutual reinforcement. Second, if a weak perturbation exists at the surface ahead of the preexisting strong upper disturbance, baroclinic instability is triggered when the two waves interact. Even though the amplitude of the lower disturbance is initially much weaker, it is intensified quickly and catches up with the amplitude of the upper disturbance, so that the coupled vertical structure resembles that of an unstable normal mode eventually. These results describe the observed behavior in Type B atmospheric cyclogenesis quite well.