Barotropic growth of monsoon depressions

Diaz, Michael; Boos, William R.

doi:10.1002/qj.3467

Title: Barotropic growth of monsoon depressions

Journal Article · Mon Dec 24 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3467· OSTI ID:1542355

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Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Although monsoon depressions are a principal synoptic‐scale element of the South Asian monsoon, producing extreme rainfall over India and surrounding regions, there exists no widely accepted mechanism explaining their occurrence. This study presents a hierarchy of numerical experiments aimed at finding such an explanation. Using a perturbation‐basic state decomposition, we derive an anelastic system of equations that can represent disturbances growing in the complex, three‐dimensional monsoon basic state. We find that modal solutions to these equations linearized about this basic state can explain many features of observed monsoon depressions, including their warm‐over‐cold core structure, westward propagation, and lower‐tropospheric wind maximum. For the zonally symmetric case, these modes are barotropically unstable, drawing energy from the meridional shear of the monsoon trough. For the zonally varying basic state, modal solutions still derive energy from barotropic conversion, but fail to achieve positive net growth rates when dissipative processes are included. For the nonlinear equation set, these modes can be excited by a heating impulse, and their energy then remains roughly constant over several days as barotropic energy transfers oppose dissipative losses. Our results support the idea that the general concept of barotropic instability can explain the structure, propagation, and geographic distribution of monsoon depressions, but not their rapid growth rates. We speculate that condensational heating coupled to these waves is needed to obtain a positive growth rate.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; AGS‐1746160; N00014‐15‐1‐2531; DE‐SC0019367

OSTI ID:: 1542355

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1494214

Journal Information:: Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol. 145, Issue 719; ISSN 0035-9009

Publisher:: Royal Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 33 works

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