![[movie of plane couette flow]](Images/111018reduced.png)
Baroclinic instability in a narrow aspect ratio channel |
| steady-state turbulence in baroclinic flow; vorticity representation | ||
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| spanwise width = (Rösby deformation radius) / 2 π = 1/2 | ||
| Phillips (1954) baroclinic instability modeled by a 2-layer incompressible viscous fluid in a channel with no-slip side walls, periodic in streamwise direction, top layer driven by `atmospheric stream', Ekman layer friction at the bottom. Computed in terms of vorticity equations as a 2-dimensional fluid, coupled across their interface by difference of vorticity. | ||