Mechanical Interpretation of the Oberbeck–Boussinesq Equations of Motion of an Incompressible Stratified Fluid in a Gravitational Field

Abstract

The Oberbeck–Boussinesq equations are of particular interest in connection with their extensive use in the studies of convection of an incompressible fluid, including convection of a rotating fluid, and mechanisms of baroclinic instability. In Part I we already noted that stratification of the fluid, rather than its compressibility, plays a decisive role in the mechanism of baroclinic instability. That is why in theoretical studies it does not make sense to complicate the problem by taking compressibility into account, if one does not consider near- or super-sonic motions