Collaborative Research: Equilibration of Ocean Currents via Inertial Instability

合作研究：通过惯性不稳定性平衡洋流

• 批准号: 0726482
• 负责人: George Carnevale
• 金额: $ 39.27万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego Scripps Inst of Oceanography
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-01 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0726482&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Equilibration; Ocean; Currents

Inertial instability occurs in rotating flows and results in the growth of perturbations in the form of streamwise vortices. If the intial flow is avortex, these perturbations take the form of toroidal or rib vortices. As they amplify, they begin to interact, forming dipoles that move out of the initially unstable region. In axisymmetric flows, the net effect of the motion and interaction of these vortices is homogenization of potential vorticity, forcing it to vanish in the instability region and beyond which then stabilizes the flow. Recently, scientists from Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the University of Hawaii have found that they can predict, with remarkable precision, the final state after this nonlinear process. They now plan to develop this theory for predicting the evolution of other kinds of vortices as well. Their work will involve numerical and theoretical research of three-dimensional flows and ill consider how this process competes with other instabilities. The results have implcations for the stabilization and maintenance of oceanic currents and eddies. In addition, the results will have an impact on the the development of models which can not resolve small scale processes.

惯性不稳定发生在旋转流中，并以流向涡流的形式导致扰动的生长。如果Intial流是Avortex，则这些扰动采用环形或肋骨涡旋的形式。随着它们的放大，它们开始相互作用，形成偶极子，这些偶极子移出最初的不稳定区域。在轴对称流中，这些涡旋的运动和相互作用的净效应是潜在涡度的均匀化，迫使其在不稳定性区域中消失，然后再稳定流动。最近，来自斯克里普斯海洋学研究所和夏威夷大学的科学家发现，他们可以以显着的精确度预测这一非线性过程后的最终状态。他们现在计划发展这一理论，以预测其他类型的涡流的演变。他们的工作将涉及三维流的数值和理论研究，并考虑了这一过程如何与其他不稳定性竞争。结果对海洋电流和涡流的稳定和维护具有隐含性。此外，结果将对无法解析小规模过程的模型的开发产生影响。