2026/06/08 by Jim Thomas, Amjad Hasan, Rajendra S. Rajpoot
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes #Climate variability and models #Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies
paper · doi:10.1175/jpo-d-24-0256.1
Abstract We study the disintegration of coherent vortices due to interaction with inertial oscillations using a two-vertical-mode model. For this, we generated and examined 640 flow regimes by varying the Rossby number and baroclinic–barotropic energy ratio. Based on the study, we find that increasing the Rossby number while keeping the same energy ratio and increasing the energy ratio at the same Rossby number can lead to faster disintegration of vortices. Exploring physical space regions partitioned into strain-dominant and vorticity-dominant regions, we see that disintegrating vortices have forward energy flux located in strain-dominant regions, while slightly weaker inverse energy flux is seen in vorticity-dominant regions. The net effect results in a forward cascade of the flow. Multiple phenomenological changes in the disintegration process are also seen on comparing anticyclonic and cyclonic vortices. The findings of this study in general help develop an understanding of the energy levels and Rossby number needed for unbalanced flows to disintegrate balanced flows in a broad regime going from small to O (1) Rossby numbers, this being the Rossby number transition seen as we move from mesoscales to submesoscales in the world’s oceans.