Browsing Faculty Research Publications (College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences) by Subject "Instability"

Now showing items 1-3 of 3

Baroclinic Interleaving Instability: A Second-Moment Closure Approach

Smyth, W. D.; Burchard, H.; Umlauf, L. (American Meteorological Society, 2012-05)

Interleaving motions on a wide, baroclinic front are modeled using a second-moment closure to represent unresolved fluxes by turbulence and salt fingering. A linear perturbation analysis reveals two broad classes of unst ...
Kelvin-Helmholtz billow evolution from a localized source

Smyth, William D. (2004)

The envelope function for Kelvin–Helmholtz billows growing from a point disturbance is derived on the basis of linear perturbation theory. The result describes an elliptical patch of billows that expands linearly in time ...
Narrowband Oscillations in the Upper Equatorial Ocean. Part II: Properties of Shear Instabilities

Smyth, W. D.; Moum, J. N.; Nash, J. D. (American Meteorological Society, 2011-03)

Narrowband oscillations observed in the upper equatorial Pacific are interpreted in terms of a random ensemble of shear instability events. Linear perturbation analysis is applied to hourly averaged profiles of velocity ...