Synoptic-Scale Waves in Sheared Background Flow over the Western North Pacific

Abstract

Abstract Tropical depression (TD)-type waves are the dominant mode of synoptic-scale fluctuations over the western North Pacific. By applying spatiotemporal filters to the observed OLR data and the NCEP–DOE AMIP-II reanalysis data for 1979–2013, this study reveals the characteristics and energetics of convectively coupled TD-type waves under the effects of different circulation patterns in association with vertical wind shear. Results exhibit that different ambient sheared flows significantly affect the vertical structure of westward-propagating TD-type waves, with a lower-tropospheric mode in an easterly sheared background and an upper-tropospheric mode in a westerly sheared background. Energetic diagnoses demonstrate that when the disturbance is trapped in the lower (upper) level by easterly (westerly) shear, the horizontal mean flow in the lower (upper) level favors wave growth by converting energy from the shear of the zonal mean flow (from the convergence of the meridional mean flow). During the penetration of a westward-propagating synoptic-scale disturbance from a westerly sheared flow into an easterly sheared flow, the upper-level disturbance decays, and the lower-level disturbance intensifies. Meanwhile, the upper-level kinetic energy is transferred downward, but the effect induces the wave growth only confined to the midlevels. Consequently, the low-level growth of the westward-propagating upper-level synoptic-scale disturbance is mainly attributed to the barotropic conversion of horizontal mean flow in the lower troposphere.