Frontogenesis in a Continuously Varying Potential Vorticity Fluid

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Abstract The geostrophic momentum approximation and a Lagrangian formulation are employed to consider the nature of the fronts that result from the action of a stretching deformation field in a continuously varying potential vorticity fluid. In such a fluid, the tropopause is represented by a shallow region over which the potential vorticity changes from a representative tropospheric value to a representative stratospheric one. Decreasing the depth of this zone resulted in an increase in the intensity of the upper-level front. Reduction in the cross-front temperature contrast reduced the intensity of both the surface and upper-level front. Most notably it resulted in the elimination of the deep tropopause fold in the vicinity of the upper-level front. The environment in which the fronts form may have temperature perturbations that are the result of previous or contemporaneous frontogenetic processes. The effects of two different types of perturbations were studied with the continuous model. The inclusion ...