Iranian Journal of Geophysics

Iranian Journal of Geophysics

Revisiting wintertime budget of local finite-amplitude wave activity in the Northern Hemisphere storm tracks

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Article

Authors
Amin Fazl Kazemi 1
Alireza Mohebalhojeh 2
Mohammad Mirzaei 3
Farhang Ahmadi-Givi 2
1 Ph.D., Student of Meteorology, Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 Professor, Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3 Associate Professor, Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
10.30499/ijg.2025.494060.1655
Abstract
The climatological distribution of the local finite-amplitude wave activity (LWA) and its three-dimensional flux components are studied for boreal winter (December to February) using the JRA-55 reanalysis dataset for the period 1979–2023. The methods for extracting the Lagrangian reference state of quasigeostrophic potential vorticity and obtaining density-weighted vertical average are modified to expand the domain of validity to include highland and low-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere. A novel summarization method is also proposed to extract spatial scale and identify the local dominant balances within the LWA budget terms. Additionally, variations in the LWA flux divergence components are examined for the layers representing the upper, middle and lower troposphere, as well as for the vertical profiles in the selected horizontal areas with the storm tracks. The differences observed in the distribution of LWA and its flux divergence, compared to previous studies, are qualitatively consistent with the available Eulerian diagnostics for small-amplitude disturbances. The finite-amplitude Lagrangian formulation makes it possible to provide more accurate estimates of the nonconservative source/sink processes. These estimates are revised using the diagnostics related to the geostrophic states, based on a formal quasigeostrophic inversion. The main dominant balance observed for the column-averaged budget is between the near-surface baroclinicity, which generates the vertical flux of LWA, and the nonconservative processes. The results show that, while the North Atlantic and North Pacific storm tracks exhibit similar patterns with regard to the source of LWA, they behave quite differently at the regional scale in terms of the balance between the LWA budget terms.
Keywords
Local finite-amplitude wave activity
lagrangian reference states
quasigeostrophic potential vorticity
wave activity flux divergence
baroclinic eddy

Subjects

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Iranian Journal of Geophysics

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 19 April 2025