Kinetic energy damping before the instability onset. In blue is the total kinetic energy, plotted as a function of time, in the time leading up to the instability. The last exponential rise shows the time at which the first thread is disrupted. In dashed red is a theoretical estimation of the steady state based on the model described in Eq. (27). As waves are progressively damped, the total kinetic energy is expected to tend towards this theoretical steady state prior to the instability.