Maintenance of quasi-stationary waves in a two-level quasi-geostrophic spectral model with topography
A study of the maintenance of the quasistationary waves forced by topography using a truncated two-level quasigeostrophic spectral model in a zonal channel on a beta-plane is presented. The model's motion contains wavenumbers 0, n, and 2n in the zonal direction, where n is the lowest eddy wavenumber and also the wavenumber of the topography. The study covered the two cases defined by n=2 and n=3; the spectral mode was integrated by initially perturbing the stationary solution of the equations governing the spectral coefficients, and a detailed energetics study was made of the quasiequilibrium state to study the maintenance of the quasistationary waves. The energy conversions required for maintaining these waves when n=3 imply that they are generated mainly by baroclinic stability of the forced waves; this type of baroclinic wave tends to become stationary to draw efficiently on the available energy of the forced wave.