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The deflection of a baroclinic jet by a wall in a rotating fluid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2006

J. A. Whitehead
Affiliation:
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543

Abstract

The momentum integral of a baroclinic jet of fluid in a rotating frame determines the relative size of two jets which are produced when the jet is split by a wall. Owing to lateral variation of velocity and depth of the jet, the percentage of fluid which goes to the right or left differs from that of the non-rotating jet, which is generally assumed to have no shear. For a northern hemisphere jet of zero or constant potential vorticity, much more fluid flows to the right than to the left; for a jet normal to the wall more than 65% goes to the right and less than 35% to the left.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1985 Cambridge University Press

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