Anelastic and compressible simulation of moist dynamics at planetary scales

In particular, anelastic baroclinic eddies propagate faster and develop slower owing to, respectively, modified dispersion relation and abbreviated baroclinic vorticity production. These eddies also carry less kinetic energy, and the onset of their rapid growth occurs later than for the compressible solutions. The observed differences between the two solutions are sensitive to initial conditions as they diminish for large-amplitude excitations of the instability.

In particular, on the climatic time scales, the anelastic and compressible solutions evince similar zonally averaged flow patterns with the matching meridional transports of entropy, momentum, and moisture.