Balasubramanian, G., and M. K. Yau, 1996: The life cycle of a simulated
marine cyclone: Energetics and PV diagnostics. Journal of the Atmospheric
Sciences, 53(4), 639-653.
Abstract: The life cycle of an intense marine cyclone is documented
in this paper. The departure of the moist dynamics from the dry baroclinic
dynamics is explored from an energetics point of view. The contributions
of various physical processes through the life cycle to the low-level cyclonic
circulations is computed using a recently developed PV (potential vorticity)
inversion technique.
The moist cyclone deviates most from the dry cyclone during the early rapid
spinup period with significant mesoscale features associated with the warm
and bent-back warm frontal zones. However, from an energetics point of
view, the moist cyclone possesses a very similar, but enhanced, growth
and decay rate during its life cycle. The transports of heat and momentum
fluxes are also strengthened. The enhancement of eddy kinetic energy due
to condensation accounts for nearly 50% of the maximum eddy kinetic energy
generated in the moist cyclone.
From a PV perspective, the main difference between the moist cyclone and
the dry cyclone is the production of a low-level PV anomaly during the
early rapid spinup period. The cold advection in association with the circulation
due to this anomaly has the cyclotic effect of decreasing the surface thermal
anomaly and the cyclogenetic effect of increasing the upper-level wave
deepening. In the mature stage when the growth has almost ceased, the dry
cyclone also possesses upper- and lower-level PV anomalies very similar
to the moist cyclone.
Based on these results, the authors conclude that, except for the mesoscale
structural differences and their associated interactions during the early
rapid spinup period, the moist cyclone exhibits an enhanced growth rate
(and decay rate as well) but appears dynamically similar to the dry cyclone
from an energetics point of view as well as in terms of "PVthinking."