Traditionally, “ eddy feeds zonal flow” in the atmosphere is considered as a result of decaying unstable waves. We show that disturbances made of non-modal solutions -the continuous-spec-trum disturbances-can also e...Traditionally, “ eddy feeds zonal flow” in the atmosphere is considered as a result of decaying unstable waves. We show that disturbances made of non-modal solutions -the continuous-spec-trum disturbances-can also effectively transport zonal angular momentum and interact with the zonal basic flow. These disturbances, though stable, eventually decay, losing their energy to strengthen the westerly jets in the atmosphere. Calculations with observational data illustrate that the atmospheric zonal flow is maintained primarily by continuous-spectrum disturbances rather than by unstable waves. Angular momen-tum transport by continuous-spectrum disturbances is one order of magnitude larger than that by all kinds of normal modes (referred as discrete-spectrum disturbances) including unstable waves. Key words Maintenance of zonal flow - Continuous-spectrum - Angular momentum - Transport This research was partly supported by the Chinese Program on Basic Research and by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was also supported by NASA Grant NAGW 3517, and DOE Grant DEFG0285-ER60314 to the State University of New York at Stony Brook.展开更多
文摘Traditionally, “ eddy feeds zonal flow” in the atmosphere is considered as a result of decaying unstable waves. We show that disturbances made of non-modal solutions -the continuous-spec-trum disturbances-can also effectively transport zonal angular momentum and interact with the zonal basic flow. These disturbances, though stable, eventually decay, losing their energy to strengthen the westerly jets in the atmosphere. Calculations with observational data illustrate that the atmospheric zonal flow is maintained primarily by continuous-spectrum disturbances rather than by unstable waves. Angular momen-tum transport by continuous-spectrum disturbances is one order of magnitude larger than that by all kinds of normal modes (referred as discrete-spectrum disturbances) including unstable waves. Key words Maintenance of zonal flow - Continuous-spectrum - Angular momentum - Transport This research was partly supported by the Chinese Program on Basic Research and by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was also supported by NASA Grant NAGW 3517, and DOE Grant DEFG0285-ER60314 to the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
