On the northward motion of midlatitude cyclones in a barotropic meandering jet

Ludivine Oruba (1) , Guillaume Lapeyre (1) , Gwendal Rivière (2)

1 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
2 CNRM - Centre national de recherches météorologiques

The combined effects of the deformation (horizontal stretching and shearing) and nonlinearities on the beta drift of midlatitude cyclones are studied using a barotropic quasigeostrophic model on the beta plane. It is found that, without any background flow, a cyclonic vortex moves more rapidly northward when it is initially strongly stretched along a mostly north-south direction. This meridional stretching is more efficient at forming an anticyclone to the east of the cyclone through Rossby wave radiation. The cyclone-anticyclone couple then forms a nonlinear vortex dipole that propagates mostly northward. The case of a cyclone embedded in uniformly sheared zonal flows is then studied. A cyclone evolving in an anticyclonic shear is stretched more strongly, develops a stronger anticyclone, and moves faster northward than a cyclone embedded in a cyclonic shear, which remains almost isotropic. Similar results are found in the general case of uniformly sheared nonzonal flows. The evolution of cyclones is also investigated in the case of a more realistic meandering jet whose relative vorticity gradient creates an effective beta and whose deformation field is spatially varying. Astatistical study reveals a strong correlation among the cyclone's stretching, the anticyclone strength, and the velocity toward the jet center. These different observations agree with the more idealized cases. Finally, these results provide a rationale for the existence of preferential zones for the jet-crossing phase: that is, the phase when a cyclone crosses a jet from its anticyclonic to its cyclonic side. © 2012 American Meteorological Society.

Domaines: Météorologie

Ludivine Oruba, Guillaume Lapeyre, Gwendal Rivière. On the northward motion of midlatitude cyclones in a barotropic meandering jet. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2012, 69 (6), pp.1793-1810. ⟨10.1175/JAS-D-11-0267.1⟩. ⟨hal-01114746⟩