Rotating hydraulic models of fronts at the continental shelf break and in circular eddies

Abstract

Abstract We explore a mechanism that uses inertia to produce flux across a geostrophic front that separates two fluids of differing density in a rotating fluid. We ask “when the front is forced to be narrower than the Rossby Radius R so the full Rossby adjustment cannot be reached, will fluid continue to flow in a cross-frontal direction and if so at what rate?” A simplified model is considered with flow in a submerged horizontal slot between two very deep basins containing motionless water. The inviscid rotating nonlinear equations for exchange flow are solved for two configurations: The first has Cartesian coordinates and the slot is infinitely wide but of length I in the cross-frontal direction. Volume flux decreases with increasing rotation rate and ultimately goes to zero when Rossby radius R = I. The second case has cylindrical coordinates. Flux also decreases with increasing rotation rate and goes to zero when the difference between radii equals where γ is the outer radius divided by the inner radi...