A study of the phase instability of quasi-geostrophic Rossby waves on the infinite beta-plane to zonal flow perturbations

Type Article
Date 2010
Language English
Author(s) Marie Louis
Affiliation(s) IFREMER, Ctr Brest, CNRS IRD UBO UMR6523, Lab Phys Oceans, F-29280 Plouzane, France.
Source Nonlinear Processes In Geophysics (1023-5809) (Copernicus Gesellschaft Mbh), 2010 , Vol. 17 , N. 1 , P. 49-63
WOS© Times Cited 2
Abstract The problem of the linear instability of quasi-geostrophic Rossby waves to zonal flow perturbations is investigated on an infinite beta-plane using a phase dynamics formalism. Equations governing the coupled evolutions of a zonal velocity perturbation and phase and amplitude perturbations of a finite-amplitude wave are obtained. The analysis is valid in the limit of infinitesimal, zonally invariant perturbation components, varying slowly in the meridional direction and with respect to time. In the case of a slow sinusoidal meridional variation of the perturbation components, analytical expressions for the perturbation growth rates are obtained, which are checked against numerical codes based on standard Floquet theory.
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Marie Louis (2010). A study of the phase instability of quasi-geostrophic Rossby waves on the infinite beta-plane to zonal flow perturbations. Nonlinear Processes In Geophysics, 17(1), 49-63. Open Access version : https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00008/11903/