Hydraulic control of zonal currents on a beta-plane

Details Hydraulic control of zonal currents on a beta-plane Hydraulic control of zonal currents on a beta-plane

Apr 1989

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1989jfm...201..357a&link_type=abstract

Journal of Fluid Mechanics (ISSN 0022-1120), vol. 201, April 1989, p. 357-377. Research supported by the U.S. Navy and NSF.

Physics

9

Channel Flow, Hydraulic Control, Zonal Flow (Meteorology), Froude Number, Kinetic Energy, Planetary Atmospheres, Pressure Distribution, Vorticity Equations

Scientific paper

Eastward-flowing zonal currents on a thin rotating shell, such as a planetary atmosphere or ocean, have integral properties analogous to open channel flows, the latitudinal width of the zonal current being the analogue of the depth of an open channel flow. The purpose here is to apply the formalism and some of the concepts of open channel flow hydraulics to zonal flows and demonstrate the results with laboratory experiments. In particular a critical relationship is found between a representative zonal velocity, U, and the half-width of the current, a. A dimensionless parameter (U/beta a-squared), the Froude/Rossby number, is found analogous to the Froude number of open channel flow. Westward-flowing currents do not have an equivalent analogue.

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