The generation of zonal jets by large-scale mixing
The development of zonal flows on a midlatitude beta -plane subject to a time-varying topographic forcing is investigated in a series of numerical integrations in which the forcing is concentrated at large scales, and in which the usual two-dimensional inverse energy cascade is absent. In contrast t...
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Published in | Physics of fluids (1994) Vol. 24; no. 12 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Melville, NY
American Institute of Physics
01.01.2012
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The development of zonal flows on a midlatitude beta -plane subject to a time-varying topographic forcing is investigated in a series of numerical integrations in which the forcing is concentrated at large scales, and in which the usual two-dimensional inverse energy cascade is absent. In contrast to the case of small-scale forcing, where mixing of potential vorticity occurs largely through the action of small-scale eddies, mixing of potential vorticity in this case occurs predominantly in latitudinally localized Rossby wave critical layer regions, whose width grows continuously in time due to the entrainment of background fluid. The potential vorticity is found to organize into a piecewise constant staircase-like profile, monotonic in latitude, provided the ratio. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1070-6631 1089-7666 |
DOI: | 10.1063/1.4771991 |