Quantifying barotropic and baroclinic eddy feedbacks in the persistence of the Annular Modes

Abstract:

Understanding the persistence of the Annular Modes is important for the extratropical intraseasonal and decadal predictability. This study introduces a new method to quantify the relative roles of the barotropic and baroclinic eddy feedbacks
contributing to the Annular Modes persistence. Through a hybrid Eulerian-Lagrangian Finite Amplitude Wave Activity diagnostic using the ERA-40 and ERA-Interim reanalysis data, it is found that for the Southern Annular Mode (SAM): (i) transient wave activity is important in driving the SAM but provides a negative feedback
to the SAM persistence. (ii) Irreversible PV mixing, through barotropic processes in the upper troposphere, plays an important role in driving and sustaining the SAM variability. Particularly, following the poleward shift in the eddy-driven jet, the reduction/enhancement in effective diffusivity on the jet’s poleward/equatorward flank can be understood by a stronger/weaker zonal
jet acting as a robust/leaky mixing barrier. (iii) Baroclinic eddy generation and vertical wave propagation mainly act to sustain the anomalous zonal wind in SAM. The diagnostics are also applied to assess the Annular Mode simulations in simplified and comprehensive CMIP5 models to understand the bias of the SAM simulations in numerical models.