Inertial waves in a rotating spherical shell

Abstract

The structure and spectrum of inertial waves of an incompressible viscous fluid inside a spherical shell are investigated numerically. These modes appear to be strongly featured by a web of rays which reflect on the boundaries. Kinetic energy and dissipation are indeed concentrated on thin conical sheets, the meridional cross-section of which forms the web of rays. The thickness of the rays is in general independent of the Ekman number E but a few cases show a scaling with E^1/4 and statistical properties of eigenvalues indicate that high-wavenumber modes have rays of width O(E^1/3). Such scalings are typical of Stewartson shear layers. It is also shown that the web of rays depends on the Ekman number and shows bifurcations as this number is decreased.

This behaviour also implies that eigenvalues do not evolve smoothly with viscosity. We infer that only the statistical distribution of eigenvalues may follow some simple rules in the asymptotic limit of zero viscosity.