On the Onset of Inertial Recirculation in Barotropic General Circulation Models

Abstract

Dep. Earth, Atmos. and Planet. Sci., Massachusetts Inst. Technol., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA J (Journal-Article) M (Marine) A nonlinear ordinary differential equation that models the western boundary layer of quasi-geostrophic barotropic models of the wind-driven circulation has been investigated. For mild nonlinearity, the boundary layer model has two possible outflow solutions which match to a Sverdrup interior. For stronger nonlinearity, no solutions exist. In weakly nonlinear case the author uses linear stability theory to resolve the problem of multiple solutions. A highly stretched regional model of the full quasi-geostrophic equations is used to investigate the disappearance of solutions of the boundary layer model Ocean Technology, Policy and Non Living Resources (Q2) 1829703 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Record 1517 of 1621 - ASFA 1988-1996