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Continental Shelf Baroclinic Instability. Part II: Oscillating Wind Forcing
- Source :
- Journal of Physical Oceanography. 46:569-582
- Publication Year :
- 2016
- Publisher :
- American Meteorological Society, 2016.
-
Abstract
- Continental shelf baroclinic instability energized by fluctuating alongshore winds is treated using idealized primitive equation numerical model experiments. A spatially uniform alongshore wind, sinusoidal in time, alternately drives upwelling and downwelling and so creates highly variable, but slowly increasing, available potential energy. For all of the 30 model runs, conducted with a wide range of parameters (varying Coriolis parameter, initial stratification, bottom friction, forcing period, wind strength, and bottom slope), a baroclinic instability and subsequent eddy field develop. Model results and scalings show that the eddy kinetic energy increases with wind amplitude, forcing period, stratification, and bottom slope. The dominant alongshore length scale of the eddy field is essentially an internal Rossby radius of deformation. The resulting depth-averaged alongshore flow field is dominated by the large-scale, periodic wind forcing, while the cross-shelf flow field is dominated by the eddy variability. The result is that correlation length scales for alongshore flow are far greater than those for cross-shelf velocity. This scale discrepancy is qualitatively consistent with midshelf observations by Kundu and Allen, among others.
- Subjects :
- Length scale
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
010505 oceanography
Continental shelf
Baroclinity
Rossby radius of deformation
Stratification (water)
Mechanics
Oceanography
01 natural sciences
Potential energy
Physics::Fluid Dynamics
Amplitude
Downwelling
Climatology
Physics::Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Geology
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15200485 and 00223670
- Volume :
- 46
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Physical Oceanography
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........a91a5aad1008ae7dafa8ef040404c2a7