Generated using version 3.2 of the official AMS LATEX template 1 A semi-hydrostatic theory of gravity-dominated compressible flow 2 Thomas Dubos ∗ IPSL-Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France Fabrice voitus CNRM-Groupe d’étude de l’Atmosphere Metéorologique, Météo-France, Toulouse, France ∗Corresponding author address: Thomas Dubos, LMD, École Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France. E-mail:
[email protected] 1 3 Abstract 4 From Hamilton’s least action principle, compressible equations of motion with density diag- 5 nosed from potential temperature through hydrostatic balance are derived. Slaving density 6 to potential temperature suppresses the degrees of freedom supporting the propagation of 7 acoustic waves and results in a sound-proof system. The linear normal modes and dispersion 8 relationship for an isothermal state of rest on f- and β- planes are accurate from hydrostatic 9 to non-hydrostatic scales, except for deep internal gravity waves. Especially the Lamb wave 10 and long Rossby waves are not distorted, unlike with anelastic or pseudo-incompressible 11 systems. 12 Compared to similar equations derived by Arakawa and Konor (2009), the semi-hydrostatic 13 system derived here possesses an additional term in the horizontal momentum budget. This 14 term is an apparent force resulting from the vertical coordinate not being the actual height 15 of an air parcel, but its hydrostatic height, i.e. the hypothetical height it would have after 16 the atmospheric column it belongs to has reached hydrostatic balance through adiabatic 17 vertical displacements of air parcels. The Lagrange multiplier λ introduced in Hamilton’s 18 principle to slave density to potential temperature is identified as the non-hydrostatic ver- 19 tical displacement, i.e.