The merger of geophysical vortices at finite Rossby and Froude number
Abstract
We investigate the merger of two co-rotating geophysical vortices at finite Rossby and Froude number. The initial conditions consist of two uniform potential vorticity vortices in near-equilibrium and in a nearly ‘balanced’ state (i.e. with negligible emission of inertia–gravity wave radiation). We determine the critical merger distance between the two vortices. This distance is found to increase with the magnitude of the Rossby number: intense cyclones or intense anticyclones are able to merge from further apart compared to weaker cyclones and anticyclones. Note that the Froude number is proportional to the Rossby number for the near-equilibrium initial conditions considered. The critical merging distance also depends on the sign of the potential vorticity anomaly, which is positive for ‘cyclones’ and negative for ‘anticyclones’. We show that ageostrophic motions occurring at finite Rossby number tend to draw cyclones together but draw anticyclones apart. On the other hand, we show that anticyclones tend to deform more, in particular when subject to vertical shear (as when the vortices are vertically offset). These two effects compete. Overall, nearly aligned cyclones tend to merge from further apart than their anticyclonic counterparts, while vertically offset anticyclones merge from further apart than cyclones.
Citation
Reinaud , J N & Dritschel , D G 2018 , ' The merger of geophysical vortices at finite Rossby and Froude number ' , Journal of Fluid Mechanics , vol. 848 , pp. 388-410 . https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2018.367
Publication
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0022-1120Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018, Cambridge University Press. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2018.367
Description
Partial support for this research has come from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant number EP/H001794/1).Collections
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