Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2017) 132: 76
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2017-11359-2

Regular Article

Is a third scale of motion admissible in a boundary-current region?

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
² OGS-Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale, Trieste, Italy

^* e-mail: rmosetti@inogs.it

Received: 14 July 2016
Accepted: 24 January 2017
Published online: 15 February 2017

Abstract

The question arises whether an intermediate scale of the motion, between those of a boundary-current region and of the interior, may take place in the inertial regime. We prove that the very geostrophic balance prevents this possibility. The same problem is investigated in the frictional regime as well.