Nonlinear Amplification of Stationary Rossby Waves near Resonance. Part II

Abstract

In a preceding paper the authors showed that planetary waves of very different amplitudes can be sustained on the same configuration of the zonal wind by asymptotically balancing the energy contributions related to Ekman dissipation and orographic drag. The basic physical mechanism considered, namely, nonlinear self-interaction of the eddy field, was modeled in a vertically continuous quasigeostrophic model by means of a perturbative approach that relies on an ad hoc choice of the meridional profile of the wave field itself. Given the mathematical limitations of this approach, some important aspects of the mechanism of resonance bending were not explored; in particular, the sensitivity of stationary solutions to changes in the zonal wind profile, channel geometry, and physical parameters such as dissipation coefficients and mountain height. In the present paper, the robustness of the mechanism of resonance folding by numerical means is analyzed, in the framework of both the barotropic and the two-level quasigeostrophic model. It is demonstrated that resonance bending is a generic property of the equations governing atmospheric motions on the planetary scale. In particular, it is shown that multiple stationary solutions can be achieved with realistic values of Ekman dissipation and mountain height in the context of the two-level quasigeostrophic model. The authors formulate a weakly nonlinear theory that does not rely on any a priori assumptions about the meridional structure of the solution. Numerical and analytical results are compared, obtaining a satisfactory agreement in the parameter range in which the asymptotic theory is valid. The authors conclude that the present model is still a good candidate for the explanation of one of the most relevant statistical property of low-frequency variability at midlatitudes, namely, that large amplitude fluctuations of ultralong waves correspond to small variations of the zonal wind.