Vortex Splitting Research Articles

The heton, an elementary interaction between discrete baroclinic geostrophic vortices, and its implications concerning eddy heat-flow

Among the interactions of two discrete baroclinic geostrophic vortices in a two-layer system there is one class of interaction that is non-trivial; when the two vortices are of opposite sign and in different layers, and close enough together, they transport heat. Because this particular interaction can transport heat, we propose to call it the heton. It is a tilted baroclinic pair. In the Northern Hemisphere it transports heat to the left of the direction toward which its top tilts. Two warm or two cold hetons repel one another when outside the radius of deformation. A warm and a cold heton attract one another. A simple two-heton engine that exhibits vortex splitting, loss of available potential energy, and meridional heat transport is presented.

First experimental evidence of vortex splitting

Movie sequences of vortex patterns visualized by smoke in a two-dimensional starting flow around an airfoil indicate the process of vortex splitting predicted by Moore and Saffman and by Christiansen and Zabusky for some vortical flows.

Numerical Simulation of the Breakdown of a Polar-Night Vortex in the Stratosphere

Abstract With a 9-level general circulation model, all attempt was made to simulate numerically the breakdown of the circumpolar vortex in the winter stratosphere for the case of March 1965. The marching computations were started 2 and 5 days prior to the breakdown. The simulation of the vortex elongation and destruction was, to a certain extent, successful, but the split vortex in the prediction erroneously merged again after 8 days. The sudden warming was not simulated at all. The development of the Aleutian high associated with the vortex breakdown was not well computed. Studies are made on zonally averaged quantities pertaining to the tropospheric and stratospheric circulations and their coupling. The increase of eddy kinetic energy at the time of the amplification of zonal wavenumber 2 is discussed both for the numerical simulation and for the observed fields. It is reconfirmed that the eddy kinetic energy in the stratosphere is primarily supplied from below in the form of vertical flux of geopotenti...

The Relationship Between Stratospheric Circulation Patterns and Radioactive Debris in Early 1963

The large scale atmospheric nuclear testing in 1961 and 1962 afforded the opportunity of observing changes in the distribution of radioactivity and its relationship to stratospheric circulation patterns. Air-craft observations in early 1963 from 15 to 21 km over the Northern Hemisphere and balloon observations to 30 km at 31N together with 50-mb constant pressure charts suggest that most of the debris injected into the polar stratosphere during November-December 1962 was confined to a relatively small volume north of 70N. This debris did not appreciably affect the zone south of 70N until February 1963 when the circumpolar vortex split into two cyclonic cells and moved southward, one cell over Europe, the other over Canada and the United States. This contaminant was then observed as far south as 25N. An anticyclone which moved over Alaska during February 1963 had different radioactivity characteristics than did the polar vortex. These well-defined large-scale eddies maintained their identity until May 1963 when the stratospheric distribution of radioactivity became more homogeneous.