10.25349/D9532W
Thompson, Callum
0000-0002-3284-2355
University of California, Santa Barbara
Schultz, David M.
0000-0003-1558-6975
University of Manchester
The release of inertial instability near an idealized zonal jet
Dryad
dataset
2021
FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
Natural Environment Research Council
https://ror.org/02b5d8509
NE/L002469/1
Natural Environment Research Council
https://ror.org/02b5d8509
NE/I026545/1
Natural Environment Research Council
https://ror.org/02b5d8509
NE/N003918/1
2021-06-07T00:00:00Z
2021-06-07T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10505999.1
https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10505999.2
8418098791 bytes
3
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Inertial instability is a hydrodynamic instability that occurs in strong
anticyclonic flow and is typically diagnosed by negative absolute
vorticity in the Northern Hemisphere. As such, inertial instability is
often observed on the anticyclonic-shear side of jet streams, yet the
release of the instability in this environment is still poorly understood.
We simulate the release of inertial instability near an idealized
midlatitude zonal jet compared a control simulation with no instability.
We find that the release of the instability results in flat meridional
wind perturbations of up to 7 m/s over 200 km that persist for several
days, in addition to radiating inertia-gravity waves several hundreds of
kilometers away from the unstable region. Furthermore, these perturbations
instigate light-moderate occurrences of clear-air turbulence around the
unstable region that persist for up to 12 hours.
The model used in this study is Cloud Model 1 (CM1) version 19.4.