1. Introduction
One of the most robust phenomena in geophysical fluid dynamics is the emergence of jets. These jets have a large impact on the dynamics of the atmosphere and ocean mostly through eddy–mean flow interactions and appear in both terrestrial and gas planets (e.g., Williams 1978; Panetta 1993; Schneider 2006). Because of their strong dependence on temperature gradients and heat fluxes in the atmosphere, these jets shape and feed off the zonal climatic bands on Earth. Furthermore, the wave patterns of these jets directly affect storm-track variability (Blackmon 1976; Blackmon et al. 1977). The main goal of this paper is to both develop a better understanding of the physical processes and properties controlling the jet spacing and width and to better understand how these vary as a function of latitude.
In 2D turbulence, in the absence of vortex stretching, both energy and enstrophy are conserved resulting in an inverse energy cascade (Fjortoft 1953). In addition, the energy in the low-wavenumber regime is reduced by friction (e.g., Rivera and Wu 2000; Scott 2001; Smith et al. 2002; Danilov and Gurarie 2002; Grianik et al. 2004; Vallis 2006; Tsang and Young 2009). Kraichnan (1967) showed that in 2D turbulence the energy spectrum follows a 
Charney (1971) suggested that geostrophic turbulence in the atmosphere resembles 2D turbulence owing to conservation of pseudopotential vorticity, even though in the atmosphere vortex stretching plays a major role. Many observations verified that in Earth’s atmosphere the energy spectra indeed behaves as in 2D turbulence with an energy spectrum following 
Rhines (1977) and Salmon (1978) showed that as the baroclinic energy cascades, while subtracting potential energy from the scale of the meridional temperature gradient down to the deformation radius (proportional to the most unstable wavelength according to linear theory; Eady 1949), it is converted to barotropic energy and inverse cascades to larger scales (e.g., Cai and Mak 1990). Several studies argued for barotropic (e.g., Berloff and Kamenkovich 2013b; Kobashi and Kawamura 2002; Scott and Wang 2005) and baroclinic (e.g., Scott and Wang 2005; Arbic et al. 2007) inverse energy cascades in the ocean.
Rhines (1975) showed that on a β plane, as in 2D turbulence, there is an inverse energy cascade from the stirring scale up to the Rhines scale, 
Other studies found parameterizations other than the Rhines scale for the jet scale. Smith et al. (2002) showed that the arrest of the inverse energy cascade depends on the relative significance of the beta effect and the absorption of energy by friction. Moreover, surface drag was shown to affect the eddy scales and the energy ratio in the barotropic and baroclinic modes (Arbic et al. 2007). Sukoriansky et al. (2007) showed that Rossby waves and turbulence can coexist even in scales larger than the Rhines scale. Thus, the Rhines scale does not separate between the Rossby waves and turbulence regimes but plays different roles in different flow regimes; in unsteady flows, the Rhines scale is related to the inverse-cascading-energy front, while in a steady state the Rhines scale corresponds to scales of large-scale friction (zonostrophic regime; Galperin et al. 2006). Several studies used two-dimensional turbulence on the β plane and found an alternative scaling for the Rhines scale by taking friction into account and showing its proportionality with the meridional scale of the jets (e.g., Danilov and Gurarie 2002; Sukoriansky et al. 2007).
Schneider and Walker (2006) found that in an idealized GCM the meridional jet scale is similar to the Rossby radius, without inversely cascading to larger scales. O’Gorman and Schneider (2008b) showed that the meridional jet spacing approximately matches the scale of the energy-containing eddies, which does not vary much with latitude, and the Rhines scale as well. Farrell and Ioannou (2007) showed that under strong forcing the barotropic jet scale correlates with the Rhines scale through the Rayleigh–Kuo stability criterion and not through an inverse cascade argument. In their simulations for weak forcing the jet scale does not scale with the Rhines scale anymore but, rather, with the most unstable meridional wavenumber.
Stone (1978) developed an argument for baroclinic adjustment based on the supercriticality parameter [Eq. (3)] from the two-layer quasigeostrophic (QG) model (Phillips 1954). This argument states that the atmosphere is in a marginally critical state as a result of eddy fluxes that act to adjust the temperature gradients so the supercriticality parameter equals one. This was also verified using idealized GCM simulations over a wide range of parameters (Schneider and Walker 2006). One implication is that no inverse cascade occurs in an atmosphere that is in a marginally critical state. Indeed, as a result of the little separation between the scales of eddy generation and maximum eddy energy, barotropic inverse cascade was not observed on Earth (e.g., Boer and Shepherd 1983; Nastrom and Gage 1985; Shepherd 1987b), which implies that upscale energy transfer by nonlinear eddy–eddy interactions may play a minor role in the atmosphere (Panetta 1993; Schneider 2004; Schneider and Walker 2006; O’Gorman and Schneider 2007). As a result, the scale of the energy-containing eddies is similar to the deformation radius (Schneider and Walker 2006; O’Gorman and Schneider 2008b; Merlis and Schneider 2009).
On the other hand, Zurita-Gotor (2008) and Jansen and Ferrari (2012, 2013) showed that the supercriticality parameter can vary above one, depending on the forcing that acts to change it. As the supercriticality parameter is much larger than one, nonlinear eddy–eddy interactions become important such that inverse cascade increases the scale of the energy-containing eddies (Zurita-Gotor and Vallis 2009; Jansen and Ferrari 2012; Chai and Vallis 2014). In those cases the Rossby deformation radius is not proportional to the scale of the energy-containing eddies anymore. However, as predicted by Rhines (1975), through all values of criticality the scale of the energy-containing eddies is proportional to the Rhines scale (Jansen and Ferrari 2012; Chai and Vallis 2014). By increasing the supercriticality parameter above one, Zurita-Gotor and Vallis (2009) showed the occurrence of the 
Furthermore, Held and Larichev (1996) showed using a two-layer QG model that the supercriticality parameter also defines the ratio between the Rossby deformation radius and the Rhines scale. Hence, when the scale of the most unstable wave, which was predicted based on linear baroclinic theory (where potential energy is converted from the mean state to the eddies), is smaller than the scale that halts the inverse cascade, inverse cascade could occur and eddy–eddy interactions play an important role (Scott and Wang 2005). Moreover, it was shown using models (Theiss 2004; Sayanagi et al. 2008) and observations (Theiss 2006; Eden 2007) that geostrophic turbulence is isotropic (anisotropic) at latitudes where the Rhines scale is larger (smaller) than the Rossby deformation. Eden (2007) showed that the energy-containing scale was found to scale with the Rhines scale (Rossby deformation radius) when the flow was found to be anisotropic (isotropic). Okuno and Masuda (2003) and Smith (2004) showed that as the separation between the Rhines scale and Rossby deformation radius increases, the wave regimes and the Rhines effect are suppressed, and the flow is dominated by isotropic turbulence.
In this paper, because of these scales’ dependence on both latitude and rotation rate, we do not integrate them over some baroclinic zone, as done in previous studies, but investigate the jet scales and energy cascades as function of latitude and rotation rate. Using simulations of latitudinally migrating eddy-driven jets (Chemke and Kaspi 2015) enables us to perform this analysis over a continuous range of latitudes at high rotation rates. The high rotation rates allow a better scale separation between the jet, Rhines and Rossby scales, and the radius of the planet. The latitudinal dependence of these scales is found to strongly imply the turbulent behavior of the flow. Section 2 describes the idealized GCM and analysis method. Scales for the jet spacing are presented in section 3, and their effect on the spectral slopes of the zonal barotropic EKE is presented in section 4. The zonal spectral budget of the barotropic EKE and the role of eddy–eddy interactions in affecting the zonal spectrum of the barotropic EKE are presented in sections 5 and 6, respectively. Sections 7 and 8 discuss the results and summarize them, respectively.
2. Model
We use an idealized aquaplanet moist global circulation model (GCM) based on the GFDL flexible modeling system (FMS). This is a spherical coordinate primitive equation model of an ideal gas atmosphere similar to Frierson et al. (2006) and O’Gorman and Schneider (2008a). The lower boundary of the model is an ocean slab with no topography. The model does not include any ocean dynamics (heat transport, etc.); thus, the surface temperature only changes as a result of heat transport between the ocean slab and the lower layer of the atmosphere via radiative energy, sensible heat, and latent heat fluxes. The parameterization of the surface fluxes (sensible heat, latent heat, and water vapor) and the boundary layer are based on the Monin–Obukhov similarity theory. The model contains a constant latitudinal distribution of solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere and a standard two-stream gray radiation scheme for longwave radiation with optical depths that are only a function of latitude and pressure (Goody 1964; Held 1982).
On Earth the eddy-driven jet is usually merged with the subtropical jet as the typical eddy scale is relatively large compared to the planet size. Thus, for studying the meridional scale of the eddy-driven jets we carry out a set of experiments where we systematically decrease the eddy length scale compared to the size of the planet by increasing the planetary rotation rate up to 16 times Earth’s rotation rate 
3. Jet spacing
In this work we use the simulations of Chemke and Kaspi (2015), where we have shown that at high rotation rates, the eddy-driven jets are clearly separated from the subtropical jets and, because of the sphericity of the planet, migrate poleward with time (Fig. 1). The constantly migrating eddy-driven jets at midlatitudes and high rotation rates allows for analyzing these jets with latitude across the entire baroclinic zone and mapping their spacing as a function of latitude and rotation rate (Fig. 2). The jet space is calculated as the meridional distance between two consecutive peaks of the zonal-mean zonal wind.1 Because of the periodic migration of the eddy-driven jets (Fig. 1), we were able to accumulate statistics about the jets spacing at each latitude. The average of the jet spacing through all times at each latitude and rotation rate is plotted in Fig. 2. As simulations at higher rotation rates have more jets (Chemke and Kaspi 2015; Kaspi and Showman 2015), the space between the jets decreases with rotation rate. Thus, as in Schneider and Walker (2006), the total energy-containing wavenumber at 
Hovmöller diagrams of vertical and zonal mean zonal wind (m s−1) for simulations with 1, 2, 4, and 8Ωe.
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
Jet space (m) as function of latitude and rotation rate. The jet space is defined as the meridional length between two following maxima of the zonal wind. Only simulations with a continuous migration (
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
The 2D spectrum, computed using spherical harmonics as basis functions (Boer and Shepherd 1983), of the barotropic EKE (10−2 m2 s−2) in the 4, 8, 12, and 16Ωe simulations as a function of zonal and total wavenumbers.
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
The ratio between the Rhines scale and the jet spacing (blue) and between the Rossby deformation radius and the jet spacing (red) as a function of latitude for all simulations presented in Fig. 2. Each dot represents a single jet at a single latitude and rotation rate. The green line shows the supercriticality latitude where the Rhines scale equals the Rossby deformation radius. The inset shows the dependency of this latitude as a function of rotation rate. The black and gray contours show where the QG supercriticality 
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
Third, poleward of this latitude where inverse cascade could occur, the Rhines scale is indeed more correlated with the jet space. This coincides with O’Gorman and Schneider (2008b), who showed that the eddy length scale was approximately the Rhines scale and the jet spacing as well. However, here the spacing between the jets increases with latitude, getting more moderate with rotation rate (Fig. 2). Equatorward of this latitude, where the Rossby deformation radius is larger than the Rhines scale, the Rhines scale still correlates, although not as well, with the jet space but better than the Rossby deformation radius.
The fact that the latitude where the Rossby deformation radius equals the Rhines scale increases as the rotation rate decreases (inset in Fig. 4) causes the width of the region where an inverse energy cascade can occur (where the Rhines scale is larger than the Rossby deformation radius) to decrease with decreasing rotation rate. On Earth, the Rhines scale and the Rossby deformation radius are nearly equal only at very high latitudes. This may explain why previous studies observed only the enstrophy cascade in the atmosphere with no inverse cascade (Baer 1972; Boer and Shepherd 1983; Lindborg 1999; Nastrom and Gage 1985; Koshyk and Hamilton 2001).
4. Zonal spectrum of the barotropic EKE
To understand the energy transport and jet scaling equatorward and poleward of the supercriticality latitude, we first examine the zonal spectrum of the barotropic EKE and then analyze its zonal spectral budget (section 5).
The meridional jet spacing (the Rhines scale; Fig. 4) does not necessarily play an important role in the energy transfers in the zonal direction. For example, Vallis and Maltrud (1993) and Huang and Robinson (1998) showed the anisotropic nature of the Rhines scale. Nonetheless, as we show below, the Rhines and the jet scales have a crucial role in affecting the processes which transport energy to the jet scale at each latitude in the zonal direction. Moreover, Huang and Robinson (1998) show this anisotropic nature of the Rhines scale by observing the energy-containing wavenumber of the kinetic energy in a zonal and total wavenumber space. In our simulations, on the other hand, the energy-containing wavenumber has a relative isotropic behavior, as it is almost parallel to the zonal wavenumber axis (Fig. 3). As in Boer and Shepherd (1983) and Shepherd (1987b), at large total wavenumbers and small zonal wavenumbers the turbulent regime of the barotropic flow becomes less isotropic. The fact that the contours of the barotropic EKE are spread along lines of constant total wavenumbers (Fig. 3) implies that if an inverse energy cascade occurs in the zonal direction (toward smaller zonal wavenumbers with higher energy), it is accompanied with an inverse energy cascade toward smaller total wavenumbers as well.
To demonstrate the latitudinal behavior of the barotropic EKE, we show its zonal spectrum for the 
The zonal spectrum of the barotropic EKE (m2 s−2) in the 8Ωe simulation as a function of zonal wavenumber with (solid black line) and without (dashed black line) eddy–eddy interactions for (a) a latitude where the Rhines scale is smaller than the Rossby deformation radius (25°) and (b) a latitude where the Rhines scale is larger than the Rossby deformation radius (45°). The spectrum of the barotropic EKE without eddy–eddy interactions is divided by 5 for a simpler comparison. The blue and red asterisks are the Rhines and Rossby zonal wavenumbers (see appendix B), respectively. In (a), the green line follows a 
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
To see how robust this picture is, we calculate the above three slopes and plot the power of each slope as a function of rotation rate and latitude (Fig. 6). Each slope is calculated by fitting a linear trend to the log of the barotropic EKE over its specific wavenumber range. The red line shows the supercriticality latitude for each rotation rate. This line clearly separates between latitudes where the spectral slope is close to −3 between the Rhines zonal wavenumber and the viscosity scale (equatorward of the supercriticality latitude) and latitudes where the spectral slope is close to −
The spectral slope as function of latitude and rotation rate. This is calculated as the power of the zonal wavenumber of a straight line fitted to the barotropic EKE spectrum for each latitude and rotation rate. The red line shows the latitude at each rotation rate where the Rhines scale equals the Rossby deformation radius. Below this line, the slope is fitted from the Rhines wavenumber down to 
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
At latitudes equatorward of the supercriticality latitude, the jet, Rhines, and Rossby zonal wavenumbers do not coincide with the energy-containing zonal wavenumber 
The ratio of the length scale of the energy-containing zonal wavenumber, calculated from the zonal spectrum of the barotropic meridional velocity (see appendix B), and the jet space as a function of latitude for all rotation rates. The blue (red) dots represent latitudes poleward (equatorward) of the latitude where the Rhines scale is equal to the Rossby deformation radius.
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
Although the above picture strongly agrees with Rhines (1975) and Salmon (1978) at latitudes poleward of the supercriticality latitude where an inverse cascade occurs up to the jet scale, there are some features that require further explanation. First, it seems that even though the Rossby deformation radius coincides with the scale where inverse cascade begins (as can be seen by the −
5. Zonal spectral barotropic EKE budget
For interpretation of these results (Figs. 4 and 6), we proceed to analyze the different components in the barotropic EKE equation (see appendix A) similar to Larichev and Held (1995), only that here as a function of latitude. This allows us, first, to determine whether the Rossby deformation radius is indeed the scale where baroclinic energy is converted to barotropic energy. Second, it enables us to observe the behavior of eddy–eddy and eddy–mean flow interactions poleward and equatorward of the supercriticality latitude, and thus to better understand the processes of energy transport at latitudes where inverse cascade does and does not occur.
The results below are shown for the 
Components of the barotropic EKE equation (m2 s−3; see appendix A) in the 8Ωe run as a function of latitude and zonal wavenumber: (a) conversion of baroclinic EKE, (b) conversion of barotropic eddy potential energy multiplied by 5, (c) eddy–mean flow interactions, and (d) eddy–eddy interactions. The gray, black, and white lines are the Rhines, Rossby, and the conversion zonal wavenumbers, respectively. The blue and red lines are the supercriticality and conversion latitudes, respectively. Each component is multiplied by the wavenumber and smoothed with a 20-point running mean.
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
Most of the energy influx is from the baroclinic EKE (Fig. 8a). This influx is being transferred to larger (inverse cascade) and smaller scales (enstrophy cascade) by the eddy–eddy interactions (Fig. 8d). This transfer occurs mostly poleward of the supercriticality latitude and continues beyond the Rhines scale up to 
The Rossby deformation radius manages to separate accurately latitudes where the −
One reason that can explain the inability of the conversion zonal wavenumber or the Rossby zonal wavenumber to separate between the inverse energy cascade and the enstrophy cascade at each latitude, poleward of the supercriticality latitude (black contours in Fig. 6), is the wide range where baroclinic EKE is being converted to barotropic EKE (Figs. 8a and 9a). This was pointed out by Larichev and Held (1995), who showed that as a result of the broad conversion to the barotropic mode, the −
Components of the barotropic EKE equation (10−5 m2 s−3; see appendix A) as a function of zonal wavenumber at latitudes (a) poleward of the supercriticality latitude (45°) and (b) equatorward of the supercriticality latitude (25°) in the 8Ωe run as in Fig. 8: conversion from baroclinic EKE to barotropic EKE (orange line), conversion from barotropic eddy potential energy to barotropic EKE (black line), transfer of barotropic EKE by eddy–eddy interactions (red line), and transfer from barotropic mean kinetic energy to barotropic EKE (blue line).
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
As a result of the mismatch between the Rossby deformation radius and the conversion scale, there is a region between the supercriticality latitude and the conversion latitude (thus, between the red and blue lines) where the influx from the baroclinic EKE still occurs at scales smaller than the Rhines scale (Fig. 8a). Thus, at these latitudes the energy still needs to be transferred upscale to the jet scale. Indeed, eddy–eddy interactions are transferring energy upscale as well as downscale at these latitudes (Fig. 8d). However, equatorward of the supercriticality latitude, the slopes follow more the spectral slope of an enstrophy cascade 
We next focus on how the energy budget behaves equatorward of the conversion latitude (thus, equatorward of the red line), where the input to the barotropic EKE occurs at scales larger than the Rhines scale (Fig. 8). In terms of Vallis and Maltrud (1993)’s dumbbell figures, at these latitudes the influx of barotropic EKE occurs inside the dumbbell in the wave regime. The anisotropic nature of this regime disables us to infer any conclusions on the meridional jet spacing by studying the energy spectrum in the zonal direction. However, it is a unique regime and it is important to understand it in the zonal direction as well.
Figure 10 is similar to Fig. 8 but is only for latitudes equatorward of the conversion latitude. First, we can see that the magnitude of the different components in the barotropic EKE equation [Eq. (A1)] is an order of magnitude smaller than poleward of the conversion latitude. Second, at these latitudes the influx is mostly from barotropic eddy potential energy (Fig. 10b) rather than baroclinic EKE (Fig. 10a) as in the poleward latitudes (Fig. 8a). Moreover, only at these latitudes, the barotropic EKE is converted to baroclinic EKE at low latitudes and small wavenumbers (Fig. 8a). Different than the higher latitudes, here the eddy–mean flow interactions (Fig. 10c), which are stronger than the eddy–eddy interactions (Fig. 10d), transfer this influx from potential energy to higher latitudes. On the other hand, as the separation between the conversion wavenumber and the Rhines wavenumber grows (moving to lower latitudes) the eddy–eddy interactions remove the influx of barotropic eddy potential energy at large scales and transfer it down to the Rhines zonal wavenumber (Fig. 10d). At latitudes close to the conversion latitude, we can see the remnants of the influx from the baroclinic EKE and the outflux by both the eddy–eddy and eddy–mean flow interactions, in addition to the energy transfer to small scales by the eddy–eddy interactions.
Components of the barotropic EKE equation (m2 s−3; see appendix A) in the 8Ωe run as a function of latitude and zonal wavenumber, as in Fig. 8, only for latitudes where the Rhines scale is smaller than the conversion scale of baroclinic EKE: (a) conversion of baroclinic EKE, (b) conversion of barotropic eddy potential energy, (c) eddy–mean flow interaction, and (d) eddy–eddy interaction.
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
6. The role of eddy–eddy interactions
To further analyze whether the eddy–eddy interactions are important poleward and equatorward of the supercriticality latitude, we remove the eddy–eddy interactions from the momentum and temperature equations as in O’Gorman and Schneider (2007). As a result, in these simulations only, the eddy–mean flow interactions can control the shape of the energy spectrum. The dashed black lines in Fig. 5 show the spectrum of the barotropic EKE in the simulation where we removed the eddy–eddy interactions. Although Fig. 5 shows only the spectrum of the barotropic EKE from two different latitudes (poleward and equatorward of the supercriticality latitude), their properties are found to be robust through all latitudes in this simulation. Similar to O’Gorman and Schneider (2007) and Chai and Vallis (2014), the barotropic EKE at intermediate scales, in the simulation with eddy–eddy interactions, is smaller than in the simulation where these interactions are absent (Fig. 5a). O’Gorman and Schneider (2007) suggested that the presence of eddy–eddy interactions reduces the competence to convert energy to barotropic energy and thus reduces the total barotropic kinetic energy. In addition, the removal of eddy–eddy interactions causes the spectrum to be less smooth (Fig. 5), likely as a result of the lack of energy transfer between different scales by these interactions (O’Gorman and Schneider 2007).
The spectrum of the barotropic EKE at latitudes poleward of the supercriticality latitude (Fig. 5b) does not follow a 
The 2D spectrum of the barotropic EKE (10−2 m2 s−2), as in Fig. 3, only for the 8Ωe simulation without eddy–eddy interactions, as a function of zonal and total wavenumbers.
Citation: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 72, 10; 10.1175/JAS-D-15-0007.1
On the other hand, equatorward of the supercriticality latitude the spectral slope at large scales qualitatively remains as in the simulation with the eddy–eddy interactions (Fig. 5a). Because of the lack of energy input by the eddy–mean flow interactions at small scales (as also occurs in the simulation with eddy–eddy interactions; Fig. 8c), the spectral slope becomes steeper at small scales. This could imply that as the eddy–eddy interactions weaken moving equatorward from the supercriticality latitude (Fig. 8d), the spectral slope should also become steeper (as can be seen in Fig. 6). Furthermore, equatorward of the conversion latitude, where eddy–eddy interactions are negligible (Fig. 10d), the tendency of the eddy–mean flow interactions to transfer energy to poleward latitudes along lines of constant zonal wavenumber (Fig. 10c) can also be seen in the simulation without eddy–eddy interactions where the barotropic EKE is more elongated along lines of constant zonal wavenumber (Fig. 11).
The importance of eddy–mean flow interactions, as seems to be the case equatorward of the supercriticality latitude (Figs. 8c and 9b), had been discussed in previous studies through shear-induced spectral transfer from the point of view of transient–stationary interactions (e.g., Shepherd 1987b; Huang and Robinson 1998). As in Huang and Robinson (1998), also here these interactions mostly involve eddies smaller than the Rhines scale (Fig. 8c), even though it correlates with the jet space (Fig. 4). Large-scale eddies also contribute to the spectral budget of the barotropic EKE (Fig. 8c). The lack of inverse cascade emphasizes the major role of eddy–mean flow interactions in maintaining the jets (Shepherd 1987b; Huang and Robinson 1998; Farrell and Ioannou 2007) and adding energy at large scales. Therefore, other mechanisms other than an inverse energy cascade should explain the fact that the Rhines scale still coincides with the jet space equatorward of the supercriticality latitude. This point is beyond the scope of this paper and further discussed in the next section.
On Earth, the fact that the region between the supercriticality latitude and the subtropical jet covers the entire baroclinic zone (Fig. 6) may explain the fact that an inverse cascade is not observed in atmospheric observations (Baer 1972; Boer and Shepherd 1983; Lindborg 1999; Nastrom and Gage 1985; Koshyk and Hamilton 2001). Different than the higher-rotation-rate simulations, on Earth the relative large ratio between the eddy scale and the size of the planet causes only a small separation between the Rhines scale, the Rossby deformation radius, and the conversion scale at all latitudes. As a result, the minor role of eddy–eddy interactions in this regime at higher rotation rates (Fig. 8d) is not found in our 
7. Discussion
In this study, we show the importance of the Rossby deformation radius in affecting the spectrum of barotropic kinetic energy by distinguishing between latitudes where an inverse cascade does and does not occur (Fig. 6). However, different than the classic picture (e.g., Salmon 1978), this scale does not coincide with our measures of the conversion scale from baroclinic to barotropic EKE. Because of the mismatch between the Rossby deformation radius and the conversion scale, the influx from baroclinic to barotropic EKE at latitudes equatorward of the supercriticality latitude occurs at scales smaller than the Rhines scale. However, the spectrum of the barotropic EKE follows a 
Several studies have shown that even by removing the nonlinear eddy–eddy interactions (quasi-linear models), the meridional structure of the jets remains similar to that in the full nonlinear simulations (e.g., O’Gorman and Schneider 2007; Constantinou et al. 2014; Srinivasan and Young 2012; Tobias and Marston 2013), thus implying that eddy–eddy interaction and inverse energy cascade might not be a prerequisite for jet formation. However, the different latitudinal spread of the ratio between the Rhines and jet scales poleward and equatorward of the supercriticality latitude (Fig. 4) implies that eddy–eddy interactions and inverse energy cascade do affect the meridional structure of the flow especially when it is highly nonlinear (e.g., poleward of the supercriticality latitude).
The spectrum of the barotropic EKE at latitudes equatorward of the supercriticality latitude at rotation rates higher than 
Our results show that the jet scale is proportional to the Rhines scale (Fig. 4). Assuming the jet and Rhines scales are equal, Lee (2005) suggested that the number of eddy-driven jets should be proportional to 
The different terms in Fig. 8 [Eqs. (A3)–(A6)] contain not only the transport of barotropic EKE between different scales but also the lateral transport between different latitudes. However, by looking at Fig. 8d, it seems that most of the energy transfer is between different zonal scales and not between different latitudes. Theiss (2004) showed that the nonlinear interactions are responsible for the equatorward cascade of EKE, which we do not observe in our simulations. By summing the eddy–eddy and eddy–mean flow interactions over all zonal wavenumbers at each latitude, we observe the absence of the net lateral transport of barotropic EKE. The eddy–eddy interactions decrease by an order of magnitude once they are summed over all zonal wavenumbers with no coherent behavior of an equatorward cascade. Hence, these interactions transfer most of the barotropic EKE between different scales and do not seem to cascade energy toward the equator. The eddy–mean flow interactions, on the other hand, tend to remove the barotropic EKE through most latitudes.
Choi and Showman (2011) showed using the spectrum of cloud patterns imaged from the Cassini spacecraft that 2D turbulence inverse and enstrophy cascades could occur on Jupiter. Their transition scale between the −
8. Conclusions
In this study we have used an idealized GCM at high rotation rates to allow a clear separation between the eddy-driven jet and the subtropical jet in the atmosphere. As the meridional jet spacing (latitudinal location) has an important effect on climate and weather systems, this separation enables us to scale the meridional spacing of the eddy-driven jets and study the macroturbulence behavior. Different from previous studies, the multiple-jet regime and their constant poleward migration at high rotation rates allow us to study the jet properties, macroturbulence, and energy cascades latitude by latitude and not just averaged over some baroclinic zone. Our main conclusions are as follows:
The Rhines scale is able to predict the jet spacing latitude by latitude over a wide range of simulations with different rotation rates (Fig. 4).
We show the presence of the supercriticality latitude: a latitude where the Rhines scale is equal to the Rossby deformation radius. We find that at latitudes poleward of the supercriticality latitude, where the Rhines scale is larger than the Rossby deformation radius, inverse energy cascade occurs from the Rossby deformation radius up to the Rhines scale with a spectral slope that follows a
At latitudes equatorward of the supercriticality latitude, where the Rhines scale is smaller than the Rossby deformation radius, there is a sharp transition to a regime where the spectral slope between the Rhines scale down to the viscosity scale follows a
In our Earthlike simulations the supercriticality latitude is placed poleward of the baroclinic zone, causing it to produce only the
Because of the nonlocal input of energy, mostly at small scales, from baroclinic to the barotropic EKE (Figs. 8a and 9a), the spectral slope of enstrophy cascade at latitudes poleward of the supercriticality latitude, from the Rossby deformation radius down to the viscosity scale, is shallower than the predicted
Even though the Rossby deformation radius does not coincide with the scale where energy is being transferred from baroclinic to barotropic EKE (Fig. 8a), it still produces a sharp transition between latitudes where inverse cascade does and does not occur (Fig. 6).
As a result of the previous point, at latitudes equatorward of the supercriticality latitude, the influx of baroclinic to barotropic EKE still occurs at scales smaller than the Rhines scale, even though the deformation radius is larger than the Rhines scale (Fig. 8a). Eddy–eddy interactions transfer energy upscale at these latitudes (Fig. 8d), although the spectral slope is similar to a
By removing the eddy–eddy interactions from our model, we demonstrate the point above, and show that the spectral slope at these latitudes remains qualitatively the same at large scales because of eddy–mean flow interactions (Fig. 5). The importance of eddy–eddy interactions at latitudes poleward of the supercriticality latitude is also shown. In addition, at latitudes equatorward of the supercriticality latitude the eddy–eddy interactions transfer energy to larger and smaller scales (Fig. 8d), while the eddy–mean flow interactions add energy only at large wavenumbers (Fig. 8c). As a result, when eddy–eddy interactions are removed, the eddy–mean flow interactions alone produce at small scales a steeper spectral slope than the −3 of enstrophy cascade (Fig. 5). Thus, as we move to lower latitudes where the eddy–eddy interactions weaken (Fig. 8d), the spectral slope steepens as well (Fig. 6).
At latitudes lower than the conversion latitude, where the Rhines scale is smaller than the conversion scale of baroclinic EKE and barotropic eddy potential energy to barotropic EKE, the eddy–mean flow interactions transfer the influx of energy from barotropic eddy potential energy to higher latitudes, while the eddy–eddy interactions spread it down to the Rhines scale. However, these transfers are much weaker than those at latitudes poleward of the conversion scale (Fig. 10).
Acknowledgments
We thank Janni Yuval for very fruitful discussions during the preparation of this manuscript. This research has been supported by an EU-FP7 Marie Curie Career Integration Grant (CIG-304202), the Israeli Science Foundation (Grants 1310/12 and 1859/12), and the Feinberg Graduate School at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
APPENDIX A
The Zonal Spectral Barotropic EKE Budget
APPENDIX B
Eddy Scales
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Calculating the jet width as the meridional distance between two consecutive minimum points of the zonal-mean zonal wind produces the same picture as in Fig. 2.
We also explore other ways of calculating the Rhines scale, such as the barotropic Rhines scale using the barotropic EKE (deviation from zonal mean of the vertically averaged EKE; see appendix A) as done in previous studies (e.g., Haidvogel and Held 1980; Schneider and Walker 2006; Jansen and Ferrari 2012; Chai and Vallis 2014) and the Rhines scale based on the Rayleigh–Kuo stability criterion as suggested by Farrell and Ioannou (2007). Even though that the Rhines scale and the barotropic Rhines scale were found to be similar, none of these scales were found to have better scaling with the jet space and the scale of the energy-containing eddies than the scale in Eq. (1), as discussed further below.
We assign the viscosity scale at 
The inability of the conversion latitude to produce such a sharp transition as occurs around the supercriticality latitude (Fig. 6) is also found for other conversion scales computed by different weighted-mean methods [e.g., Chai and Vallis (2014) used the inverse centroid of the conversion from eddy available potential energy to EKE, as in Schneider and Walker (2006)].