Finite-amplitude behavior of a single baroclinic wave with multiple vertical modes - Effects of thermal damping
A quasi-geostrophic, beta-plane model possessing high vertical resolution is used to investigate the effects of thermal damping on the finite amplitude behavior of a baroclinic wave; both the wave field and zonal-mean flow of the model are, however, truncated to a single horizontal mode, so that the wave-mean flow interaction is purely baroclinic. For sufficiently strong thermal damping steady wave flows are obtained, while for weaker damping, nonsteady vacillating behavior is found. In the steady wave flows, the mean flow is linearly neutral. An especially interesting vacillation, characterized by two widely separated time scales, occurs in the model nonsteady regime and appears to be similar in some respects to behavior found in the two-layer model with only lower layer dissipation.