On the shear and curvature vorticity equations

Abstract

The authors define the interchange between shear and curvature vorticity as the amount of vorticity that is cancelled when the shear and curvature tendencies are added. Except for special cases (e.g., when the flow is horizontally nondivergent and therefore relative vorticity is conserved) this interchange between shear and curvature vorticity cannot be identified with a unique collection of interchange terms on the right-hand side of the tendency equations.