Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T06:39:46.736Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A note on quasi-geostrophic flow over topography in bounded basin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2006

J. E. Hart
J. E. Hart
Affiliation:
Department of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Present address: Department of Astro-Geophysics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We consider the flow of rapidly rotating fluid over topography in a circular basin. The equations of motion (here the inviscid quasi-geostrophic vorticity equations) can be integrated exactly for certain zonally averaged currents. The assumption of the existence of a specified zonal current is equivalent to the assumption of no upstream influence in the unbounded case. It is unlikely that such solutions can be realized in experiments with real fluids for the presence of viscosity, however small, causes ‘zonal influence’ independent of the magnitude of the viscosity at times larger than the spin-up time. For times smaller than the spin-up time decaying transients can cause zonal influence which increases in magnitude with decreasing viscosity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , 23 March 1977 , pp. 657 - 668
Copyright
© 1977 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Davies, P. A. 1972 Experiments on Taylor columns in rotating stratified fluids. J. Fluid Mech. 54, 691–717.Google Scholar
Hart, J. E. 1972 A laboratory study of baroclinic instability. Geophys. Fluid Dyn. 3, 181–211.Google Scholar
Hide, R. 1971 On geostrophic motion of a non-homogeneous fluid. J. Fluid Mech. 49, 745–751.Google Scholar
Hogg, N. G. 1973 On the stratified Taylor column. J. Fluid Mech., 58, 517–537.Google Scholar
McIntyre, M. E. 1972 On Long's hypothesis of no upstream influence in a uniformly stratified or rotating fluid. J. Fluid Mech. 52, 209–243.Google Scholar