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Stuart vortices on a sphere

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2004

DARREN G. CROWDY
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, 180 Queen's Gate, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

Abstract

The exact steady two-dimensional solutions of the Euler equations due to Stuart (1967) are generalized to the surface of a sphere. The solutions are parametrized by three parameters $N$,$\theta_0$ and $\Omega_{\hbox{\scriptsize\it max}}$; the integer $N > 1$ denotes the number of smooth vorticity extrema, with extremal vorticity $\Omega_{\hbox{\scriptsize\it max}}$, that are equally spaced in longitudinal angle around a latitude circle at latitudinal spherical polar angle $\theta_0$. The solutions have two equal point-vortex singularities at the north and south spherical poles. Like Stuart's, the solutions are exact and explicit. The solutions are expected to be useful in geophysical and astrophysical applications where curvature effects are important.

Type
Papers
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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