Stable and symmetric quasi-geostrophic barotropic flows over topography

Fabio Cavallini; Fulvio Crisciani; Renzo Mosetti; Roberto Purini

doi:10.1140/epjp/i2014-14199-6

EPJ

Stable and symmetric quasi-geostrophic barotropic flows over topography

Fabio Cavallini¹, Fulvio Crisciani²^*, Renzo Mosetti¹ and Roberto Purini³

¹ Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Trieste, Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
³ Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, ISAC-CNR, Roma, Italy

Received: 31 October 2013
Revised: 18 June 2014
Accepted: 15 August 2014
Published online: 25 September 2014

Abstract

It is known that over a flat bottom, Taylor’s vortex is dynamically stable. The requirement of stability in the presence of a modulated topography with definite symmetry properties allows to modify the stream function of the vortex. The resulting solutions exhibit the same symmetry properties as the topography, and admit a variety of coupled vortices parametrized by the strength of the topography itself.