Atmospheric bistability and abrupt transitions to superrotation: Wave–jet resonance and Hadley cell feedbacks

Strong eastward jets at the equator have been observed in many planetary atmospheres and simulated in numerical models of varying complexity. However, the nature of the transition from a conventional state of the general circulation, with easterlies or weak westerlies in the tropics, to such a superrotating state remains unclear. Is it abrupt or continuous? This question may have far-reaching consequences, as it may provide a mechanism for abrupt climate change in a planetary atmosphere, both through the loss of stability of the conventional circulation and through potential noise-induced transitions in the bistability range. We study two previously suggested feedbacks that may lead to bistability between a conventional and a superrotating state: the Hadley cell feedback and a wave–jet resonance feedback. We delineate the regime of applicability of these two mechanisms in a simple model of zonal acceleration budget at the equator. Then we show using numerical simulations of the axisymmetric primitive equations that the wave–jet resonance feedback indeed leads to robust bistability, while the bistability governed by the Hadley cell feedback, although observed in our numerical simulations, is much more fragile in a multilevel model.