A carefully calibrated primitive-equation model from 41°N to 48°N is used to study the poleward undercurrent off the US west coast. Chapter 2 describes poleward flow over the slope from Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives. The model is robust, in the sense of several characteristics being qualitatively consistent with observational and...
Modifications of an ocean model are described, as the objective for which the model was used changed to study the kinematics and dynamics of an eastern-boundary poleward undercurrent.
The mathematical and physical connections between three different ways of quantifying linear predictability in geophysical fluid systems are studied in a series of analytical and numerical models. Normal modes, as they are traditionally formulated in the instabilities theories of geophysical fluid dynamics, characterize the asymptotic development of disturbances to stationary...
The long-term evolution of Gaussian eddies is studied in an equivalent barotropic model using both linear and nonlinear quasi-geostrophic theory in an attempt to understand westward propagating satellite altimetry tracked mesoscale eddies. By examining both individual eddies and a large basin seeded with eddies, it is shown that long term...
This thesis describes the results of a linear stability analysis conducted on a simulated wind-forced ocean front. The ocean surface boundary layer regulates exchanges between the ocean and atmosphere, and the presence of turbulence in the surface layer can greatly impact climate and ocean life. Past research has shown that...
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RogerM. Samelson Eric D. Skyllingstad
ABSTRACT
This thesis describes the results
An approach developed recently to study the dynamics of vorticity defects in homogeneous
shear flow extends naturally to the case of baroclinic, quasi-geostrophic
flow. It is shown that an inviscid geostrophic flow with uniform vertical shear may
be destabilized by introducing a `potential vorticity defect', an arbitrarily small but
sufficiently...
The dynamics of the growth of linear disturbances
to a chaotic basic state is analyzed in an asymptotic model of
weakly nonlinear, baroclinic wave-mean interaction. In this
model, an ordinary differential equation for the wave amplitude
is coupled to a partial differential equation for the zonal
flow correction. The leading...
We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, the problem of modeling depth-integrated (2DH) surf zone circulation on an alongshore-nonuniform natural beach, with waves approaching from an arbitrary angle. An approximate theoretical model is developed, which captures the important effect of advection in the alongshore dynamics, and shows that a nondimensional parameter Re[subscript]s...
A linearized model with two vertical modes has been developed to understand observed characteristics of monthly variability in the Equatorial Pacific from TOPEX/POSEIDON measurements of Sea Surface Height (SSH). The 2-mode model is obtained from an equatorial beta plane model that has been linearized about a geostrophically balanced mean flow...