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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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysics of fluids (1994) Vol. 24; no. 12
Main Authors SCOTT, R. K, TISSIER, A.-S
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Melville, NY American Institute of Physics 01.01.2012
Subjects
Computational fluid dynamics
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Fluid flow
Fluid mechanics
Fluids
Geophysics. Techniques, methods, instrumentation and models
Marine
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical Physics
Mechanics
Physics
Turbulence
Turbulent flow
Vorticity
Beta plane approximation
Zonal flow
Mixing process
Geophysical fluid dynamics
topography
Vorticity
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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.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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ISSN:1070-6631
1089-7666
DOI:10.1063/1.4771991