Hamilton’s principle for quasigeostrophic motion

Abstract

We show that the equation of quasigeostrophic (QG) potential vorticity conservation in geophysical fluid dynamics follows from Hamilton’s principle for stationary variations of an action for geodesic motion in the f-plane case or its prolongation in the β-plane case. This implies a new momentum equation and an associated Kelvin circulation theorem for QG motion. We treat the barotropic and two-layer baroclinic cases, as well as the continuously stratified case.