From the control experiment, it is found that the response of the vortex is dominated by the radiation of a damped sheared vortex Rossby wave (VRW) that acts to accelerate the symmetric flow through the transport of angular momentum. An increase of the kinetic energy of the symmetric flow by the VRW is shown also from the eddy kinetic energy budget. Additional tests performed on the structure and the magnitude of the initial thermal forcing confirm the robustness of the results and emphasize the significance of the wave-mean flow interaction to the intensification process.
From the sensitivity experiments, it is found that for a localized thermal anomaly, regardless of the baroclinicity of the vortex, the radial and the vertical gradients of the thermal forcing, the resultant PV perturbation follows a damping behavior, suggesting therefore that deceleration of the vortex should not be expected.