Local instability in a periodically forced sliced cylinder

Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamics of mesoscale eddy generation by instability of time-varying flows. Laboratory experiments on oscillatory motion over topography in a rapidly rotating cylinder have shown that isolated mesoscale eddies, which form in the sidewall boundary layer during certain phases of the forcing cycle, are associated with the onset of chaotic behavior in this system. This paper explores the origin of these eddies by performing computational simulations of the flow, and then interpreting the results of the calculations using spatially localized and quasi-static linear stability theory. For most of the experimental parameter space the quasi-geostrophic simulations are in excellent agreement with the laboratory observations. The eddies arise as a barotropic shear flow instability in regions of space and at times where the inflection points of the instantaneous large-scale flow are farthest from the sidewall, and where Fjortoft's theorem is strongly satisfied. At finite amplitude, advection of the local wavetrains up the bottom slope strengthens the anticyclonic eddies. These then merge, leading in most circumstances to a single strong anticyclonic vortex that can leave the sidewall and penetrate the interior. When parameters are such that the eddy persists all the way around the basin and back to the local instability region, the flow is observed to become chaotic.