Leading Lyapunov Vectors of a Turbulent Baroclinic Jet in a Quasigeostrophic Model

Abstract

Leading Lyapunov exponents and vectors are calculated for a turbulent baroclinic jet in a quasigeostrophic model with O(105) degrees of freedom. The leading exponent is close to 0.4 day?1, and the unstable subspace has dimension between 30 and 40. The leading Lyapunov vectors exhibit a strong correlation of their potential vorticity (PV) with the PV gradients of the unperturbed flow. These perturbations do not, however, appear to be instabilities of smaller scale on the turbulent flow. Instead, they share the scales of the flow itself (at least if measured along PV contours) and often simply represent local phase shifts or displacements of existing features in the flow. Singular vectors constrained to the subspace of Lyapunov vectors are also calculated. Maximum amplification factors over 2 days are, on average, about 6, 7.5, and 9 (compared to the factor of 2 implied by the leading exponent) for subspaces of the leading 20, 35, and 60 Lyapunov vectors, respectively.