科研之友
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摘要
We consider non-geostrophic homogeneous baroclinic turbulence without solid boundaries, and we focus on its energetics and dynamics. The homogeneous turbulent flow is therefore submitted to both uniform vertical shear S and stable vertical stratification, parametrized by the Brunt-Vaisala frequency N, and placed in a rotating frame with Coriolis frequency f. Direct numerical simulations show that the threshold of baroclinic instability growth depends mostly on two dimensionless numbers, the gradient Richardson number Ri = N-2/S-2 and the Rossby number Ro = S/f, whereas linear theory predicts a threshold that depends only on Ri. At high Rossby numbers the nonlinear limit is found to be Ri = 0.2, while in the limit of low Ro the linear stability bound Ri = 1 is recovered. We also express the stability results in terms of background potential vorticity, which is an important quantity in baroclinic flows. We show that the linear symmetric instability occurs from the presence of negative background potential vorticity. The possibility of simultaneous existence of symmetric and baroclinic instabilities is also investigated. The dominance of symmetric instability over baroclinic instability for Ri << 1 is confirmed by our direct numerical simulations, and we provide an improved understanding of the dynamics of the flow by exploring the details of energy transfers for moderate Richardson numbers.
- 出版日期2013-11
