Applications of a Moist Nonhydrostatic Formulation of the Spectral Energy Budget to Baroclinic Waves. Part II: The Upper-Tropospheric Energy Spectra

Abstract

Abstract In this second part of a two-part study, a newly developed moist nonhydrostatic formulation of the spectral energy budget of both kinetic energy (KE) and available potential energy (APE) is employed to investigate the dynamics underlying the mesoscale upper-tropospheric energy spectra in idealized moist baroclinic waves. By calculating the conservative nonlinear spectral fluxes, it is shown that the inclusion of moist processes significantly enhances downscale cascades of both horizontal KE and APE. Moist processes act not only as a source of latent heat but also as an “atmospheric dehumidifier.” The latent heating, mainly because of the depositional growth of cloud ice, has a significant positive contribution to mesoscale APE. However, the dehumidifying reduces the diabatic contribution of the latent heating by 15% at all scales. Including moist processes also changes the direction of the mesoscale conversion between APE and horizontal KE and adds a secondary conversion of APE to gravitational energy of moist species. With or without moisture, the vertically propagating inertia–gravity waves (IGWs) produced in the lower troposphere result in a significant positive contribution to the upper-tropospheric horizontal KE spectra at the large-scale end of the mesoscale. However, including moist processes generates additional sources of IGWs located in the upper troposphere; the upward propagation of the convectively generated IGWs removes much of the horizontal KE there. Because of the restriction of the anelastic approximation, the three-dimensional divergence has no significant contribution. In view of conflicting contributions of various direct forcings, finally, an explicit comparison between the net direct forcing and energy cascade is made.