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A mechanism for jet drift over topography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2018

Hemant Khatri Open the ORCID record for Hemant Khatri [Opens in a new window]  and
Pavel Berloff
Hemant Khatri*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Pavel Berloff
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

The dynamics of multiple alternating oceanic jets has been studied in the presence of a simple bottom topography with constant slope in the zonal direction. A baroclinic quasi-geostrophic model forced with a horizontally uniform and vertically sheared background flow generates mesoscale eddies and jets that are tilted from the zonal direction and drift with constant speed. The governing dynamical equations are rewritten in a tilted frame of reference moving with the jets, and the cross-jet time-mean profiles of the linear and nonlinear stress terms are analysed. Here, the linear stress terms are present because of the zonally asymmetric topography. It is demonstrated that the linear dynamics controls the drift mechanism. Also, it is found that the drifting jets are directly forced by the imposed vertical shear, whereas the eddies oppose the jets, although this is limited to continuously forced dissipative systems. This role of the eddies is opposite to the one in the classical baroclinic model of stationary, zonally symmetric multiple jets. This is expected to be more generic in the ocean, which is zonally asymmetric nearly everywhere.

JFM classification

Geophysical and Geological Flows: Baroclinic flows Geophysical and Geological Flows: Quasi-geostrophic flows Geophysical and Geological Flows: Topographic effects
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 845 , 25 June 2018 , pp. 392 - 416
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Copyright
© 2018 Cambridge University Press 

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