Some further considerations concerning energy budgets of moving systems

Equations for the available potential energy and kinetic energy budgets of a moving open system are developed in isobaric coordinates. Three equations constitute the final set, the first two representing the available potential energy changes due to baroclinic and barotropic processes, referred to as the baroclinic and barotropic contributions after Johnson (1970), and the third representing the kinetic energy changes in the system.

The terms in the equations bear a resemblance to those presented by Johnson with the exception that a new term is introduced which explicitly relates the effect of the changing reference state of an individual system to its change in available potential energy. A discussion of the various energy budget terms is given and a method of solving the set of equations is proposed.