Ageostrophic effects in rotating stratified flow

Abstract

We consider the low Rossby number (R) flow of a stratified fluid in a long rotating channel, for which the bottom elevation varies in the downstream direction. The quasi-geostrophic response is shown to be singular at the side walls of the channel, and thus an ageostrophic analysis is necessary even for vanishingly small R. Part of the ageostrophic steady-state response is a modified quasi-geostrophic perturbation trapped near the bottom. A second component which is present even as R approaches zero is an internal Kelvin wave whose vertical wavelength adjusts so that the wave remains stationary with respect to the channel bottom and which propagates energy and momentum to infinite heights in an unbounded channel. The case of a bounded layer of fluid is also considered, and the resonance conditions are given. We also calculate the flow field when the bottom elevation varies in the cross-stream direction. We conclude that stagnation or flow reversal can be caused either by the modified quasi-geostrophic component or by the Kelvin wave and estimate the critical condition by an extrapolation of the perturbation velocity computed from linear theory.