Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T21:03:12.955Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structure of jets in rotating systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2006

Sulochana Gadgil
Sulochana Gadgil
Affiliation:
Pierce Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts[dagger] Present address: Department of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An investigation of the structure of jets in rotating systems is presented. The fluid is assumed to be homogeneous and the flow laminar and quasi-geostrophic. When the rate of rotation is small, the dynamics is shown to be identical to that of jets in non-rotating systems, being a balance between inertial terms and lateral dissipation. As the rate of rotation increases the Ekman layers become important and in the strongly rotating case the friction in the Ekman layers dominates lateral dissipation. The jet in a non-rotating system entrains fluid at its edges and the downstream momentum flux is independent of the distance downstream. In the strongly rotating case, however, the jet ejects fluid at its edges and the downstream momentum flux decreases with downstream distance due to dissipation in the Ekman layers. A similarity solution for the general case with both types of friction is obtained and the transition from a jet in which lateral dissipation dominates to one in which Ekman friction is more important is discussed. General features of jets in strongly rotating systems are studied and implications for the Gulf Stream are mentioned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , 14 June 1971 , pp. 417 - 436
Copyright
© 1971 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bickley, W. 1937 The plane jet. Phil. Mag. (7) 23, 727–731.Google Scholar
Bryan, K. 1963 A numerical investigation of a non-linear model of a wind-driven ocean J. Atmos. Sci. 20, 594–606.Google Scholar
Fuglister, F. C. 1963 Gulf Stream '60. In Progress in Oceanography, 1, 265–373.Google Scholar
Goldstein, S. 1960 Lectures on Fluid Mechanics. Interscience.
Munk, W., Snodgrass, F. & Wimbush, M. 1970 Off-shore tides – transition from California coastal to deep sea waters Geophys. Fluid Dynam. 1, 161–236.Google Scholar
Robinson, A. R. 1965 Oceanography. In Res. Frontiers in Fluid Dynamics (ed. R. J. Seeger and G. Temple), pp. 504–533.
Rossby, C.-G. 1951 On the vertical and horizontal concentration of momentum in air and ocean currents, I Tellus, 3, 15–28.Google Scholar
Sato, H. & Sakao, F. 1964 An experimental investigation of the instability of two-dimensional jets at low Reynolds numbers J. Fluid Mech. 20, 337–352.Google Scholar
Schlichting, H. 1933 Laminare Strahlenausbreitung ZAMM 13, 260–263.Google Scholar
Schlichting, H. 1968 Boundary Layer Theory. McGraw Hill.
Sverdrup, H. U. 1947 Wind-driven currents in a baroclinic ocean: with application to the equatorial currents of the eastern Pacific. Proc. Natn. Acad. Sci. 33, 318–326.Google Scholar
Veronis, G. 1966 Wind-driven ocean circulation. Part 2 Deep-Sea Res. 13, 31–55.Google Scholar
Webster, T. F. 1965 Measurements of eddy fluxes of momentum in the surface layer of the Gulf Stream Tellus, 17, 239–245.Google Scholar