Quasigeostrophic Flows and Turbulence in a Rotating Homogeneous Fluid.

Abstract

Stimulated by new evidence from both 'in situ' oceanic observations and results from numerical modelling, a laboratory study of quasigeostrophic flow and turbulence in a rotating homogeneous fluid has been undertaken. Two dimensional turbulence driven by a uniform distribution of sources and sinks which oscillate in time, can be fairly well reproduced in this context. Inertial time scales are about ten times smaller than Ekman spinup time, and typical Reynolds numbers read 2000. The observations emphasize the spectral tendency of the energy containing eddies. The case of no topography is first discussed. The forcing is next applied over various large scale topographies, modelling the geophysical beta effect. The second aspect of this work is a study of the interaction of Rossby waves with mean flows. Connection with hydrodynamic stability theory is discussed. The third part deals with steady isolated source-sink flows in the sliced cylinder geometry.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1978
Accession Number
ADA052024

Entities

People

  • Alain Colin De Verdiere

Organizations

  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundary Layer
  • Dispersion Relations
  • Earth Sciences
  • Froude Number
  • Geography
  • Geometry
  • Long Wavelengths
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Military Research
  • Oceanography
  • Planetary Sciences
  • Stratified Fluids
  • Three Dimensional
  • Topography
  • Turbulence
  • Two Dimensional
  • Waveforms

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Fluid Dynamics.
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers