Precession resonance of Rossby wave triads and the generation of low-frequency atmospheric oscillations

Abstract

The dynamics of the Earth's atmosphere is characterized by a wide spectrum of oscillations, ranging from hourly to interdecadal and beyond. The low-frequency component of the atmospheric variability cannot be understood solely in terms of linear atmospheric waves that have shorter timescales. A newly proposed mechanism, the precession resonance mechanism, is a regime of highly efficient energy transfer in the spectral space in turbulent systems. Here, we investigate the role of the precession resonance, and the alignment of dynamical phases, in the generation of low-frequency oscillations and the redistribution of energy/enstrophy in the spectral space using the barotropic vorticity equation. First, the mechanism and its ability to generate low-frequency oscillations are demonstrated in low-order models consisting of four and five nonlinearly interacting Rossby–Haurwitz waves. The precession resonance onset is also investigated in the full barotropic vorticity equation, and the results are in agreement with the reduced models. Efficiency peaks in the energy/enstrophy transfer also correspond to regimes of strong excitation of low-frequency oscillations. The results suggest that the organization of the dynamical phases plays a key role in the redistribution of energy in the spectral space, as well as the generation of low frequencies in the barotropic vorticity equation.