Large-scale chaotic stirring stretches tracer contours into filaments containing fine spatial scales until smallscale diffusive processes dissipate tracer variance. Quantification of tracer transport in such circumstances is possible through the use of Nakamura’s ‘‘effective diffusivity’’ diagnostics, which make clear the controlling role of stirring, rather than small-scale dissipation, in lar...

This paper is the second part of the work on linear and nonlinear stability of buoyancy-driven coastal currents. Part 1, concerning a passive lower layer, was presented in the companion paper Gula & Zeitlin (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 659, 2010, p. 69). In this part, we use a fully baroclinic two-layer model, with active lower layer. We revisit the linear stability problem for coastal currents and st...

The linear wave and baroclinic instability properties of various geostrophic models valid when the Rossby number is small are investigated. The models are the ‘‘L1’’ dynamics, the ‘‘geostrophic potential vorticity’’ equations, and the more familiar quasigeostrophic and planetary geostrophic equations. Multilayer shallow water equations are used as a control. The goal is to determine whether the...

This work continues the generalized stability theory (GST) analysis of baroclinic shear flow in the primitive equations (PE), focusing on the regime in which the mean baroclinic shear and the stratification are of the same order. The Eady model basic state is used and solutions obtained using the PE are compared to quasigeostrophic (QG) solutions. Similar optimal growth is obtained in the PE an...

The aim of this paper is to determine how an atmosphere with enhanced mean state baroclinicity can support weaker baroclinic wave activity than an atmosphere with weak mean state baroclinicity. As a case study, we consider a Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) model simulation that has been previously documented to have reduced baroclinic storm activity, relative to the modern day climate (simulated by ...

Current observations from a shelf sea, continental slopes and the abyssal North-East Atlantic Ocean are all dominated by the semidiurnal lunar (M2) tide. It is shown that motions at M2 vary at usually large barotropic and coherent baroclinic scales, >50 km horizontally and >0.5 H vertically. H represents the waterdepth. Such M2-scales are observed even close to topography, the potential source ...

in this research energetics of the barotropic and baroclinic development for two planetary waves over eastern mediterranean, syria and west of iran and their interaction with surface cyclones were investigated. ahmadi-givi et al. (1384) calculated and examined several selected important terms in the eddy kinetic energy (eke) tendency equation during life cycle of six troughs that were developed...

We develop a point-vortex equilibrium statistical model for baroclinic quasigeostrophic vortices within the context of a two-layer quasigeostrophic fluid that evolves in all of space. Angular momentum, which follows from the rotational symmetry of the unbounded domain, is the key conserved quantity, introducing a length scale that confines the most probable states of the statistical theory. We ...