Robust poleward jet shifts in idealised baroclinic-wave life-cycle experiments with noisy initial conditions

Abstract

Abstract. Idealised baroclinic-wave life-cycle experiments are a widely used tool to study fundamental characteristics of mid-latitude baroclinic instability. A typical life cycle evolves from an initialised baroclinically unstable jet through an exponential growth phase of a particular unstable wave mode, followed by wave breaking during the mature phase and wave–mean flow interaction driving a jet shift during the decay phase. Many authors distinguish between life cycles with predominantly anticyclonic (LC1) and cyclonic (LC2) wave breaking, and the transition between the two flavours is typically controlled via the strength of cyclonic meridional wind shear in the initial conditions. While baroclinic wave growth has traditionally been triggered via a specified initial perturbation with fixed zonal wave number, this study extends the concept of baroclinic-wave life cycles by analysing the influence of random initial perturbations without any preferred zonal dependency on the life-cycle evolution. We find that the growth phase shows a robust LC1–LC2 distinction as a function of initialised meridional shear, while a preference for LC1-like characteristics is observed during the decay phase for all life cycles with non-monochromatic initial perturbations. In particular, the persistent cut-off cyclones that typically form for LC2 initialisations are found to eventually become unstable, with the onset of instability coming sooner for larger noise perturbations. All non-monochromatic life cycles result in a poleward jet shift in their final state, regardless of the strength of the initial shear. Consistently, anticyclonic wave breaking tends to be predominant during the mature and decay phases, even for LC2 initialisations. Equatorward jet shifts associated with cyclonic wave breaking still exist, although purely as a transient interim state. We show that wave–wave interactions resulting from the initialised random wave spectrum play an important role during all phases of the life cycle.