2022/10/13 by Daniel Bäumer, Bäumer, Daniel, Sabine Hittmeir +3 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) #Climate variability and models #FOS: Physical sciences #Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations #Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones Research #physics.ao-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2210.07057
openalex publication_date 2022/10/13 · arxiv published 2022/10/13 · arxiv updated 2023/02/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Quasi-geostrophic (QG) theory is of fundamental importance in the study of large-scale atmospheric flows. In recent years, there has been growing interest in extending the classical QG plus Ekman friction layer model (QG-Ekman) to systematically include additional physical processes known to significantly contribute to real-life weather phenomena. This paper lays the foundation for combining two of these developments, namely Smith and Stechmann's family of Precipitating Quasi-Geostrophic (PQG) models (J. Atmos. Sci, \bfseries 74, 3285--3303, 2017) on the one hand, and the extension of QG-Ekman for dry air by a strongly Diabatic Layer (DL) of intermediate height (QG-DL-Ekman) in (J. Atmos. Sci, \bfseries 79, 887--905, 2022) on the other hand. To this end, Smith and Stechmann's PQG equations for sound-proof motions are first corroborated within a general asymptotic modeling framework starting from a full compressible flow model. The derivations show that the PQG model family is naturally embedded in the asymptotic hierarchy of scale-dependent atmospheric flow models introduced by one of the present authors in (Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech., \bfseries 42, 249--274). Particular emphasis is then placed on an asymptotic scaling regime for PQG that accounts for a generic Kessler-type bulk microphysics closure and is compatible with QG-DL-Ekman theory. The detailed derivation of a moist QG-DL-Ekman model is deferred to a future publication.