CSU ATS601 Fall 2015
8 Rotational Flow
In the previous section we learned that Earth?s rotation tends to make the (large-scale) flow quasi-two dimensional, dominated by geostrophic balance. Geostrophic flow is non-divergent at leading order. This type of (large-scale) flow is therefore almost entirely determined by its rotational component and this is intuitively clear, for example, from the dominant cyclonic and anticyclonic flow patterns in mid-latitudes. However, even small-scale flows can be predominantly rotational in character (think of a tornado). It will turn out in this section that fundamental conceptual insight into the behavior of geophysical flow can be gained from a rotational perspective, that is, by studying vorticity and its governing equation. After introducing descriptors of rotational flow, such as vorticity and circulation, the section will discuss the vorticity equation and circulation theorems and lead to a “discovery” of Rossby waves. Potential vorticity conservation and its implications will be introduced later-on from the perspective of the shallow water equations.
8.1 Vorticity and circulation
The vorticity ! is defined as the curl of the velocity:
! v =(@yw - @zv, @zu - @xw, @xv - @yu) (8.1) ⌘r⇥
For fluids on a rotating planet (like the atmosphere and ocean), this is actually only the relative vorticity, since there is also vorticity associated with the rotation of the planet itself. We call Earth’s vorticity due to rotation the planetary vorticity. From the section on rotation, we saw that the intertial velocity vi = vr + ⌦ r, and thus, the absolute vorticity (sum of planetary and relative vorticity) is ⇥
!a (v + ⌦ r)= v + 2⌦ = ! + 2⌦ (8.2) ⌘r⇥ ⇥ r⇥ where we have used the fact that (⌦ r)=2⌦. This is not immediately obvious, but we will delay r⇥ ⇥ demonstrating this equality until we discuss circulation. In the previous section, we saw that geostrophic flow is two-dimensional and at leading order non- divergent (i.e. incompressible by continuity). Such flow can be described by a streamfunction defined previously as @ @ u =- and v = (8.3) @y @x or alternatively u = kˆ (8.4) ⇥r
E. A. Barnes 63 updated 11:10 on Friday 16th October, 2015 CSU ATS601 Fall 2015 which in Cartesian coordinates is @ @ @ @ @ u = kˆ =(0, 0, 1) ( , , )=(- , ,0) (8.5) ⇥r ⇥ @x @y @z @y @x If the horizontal velocity can be defined by a streamfunction , then by definition, the flow is non- divergent. This can be seen easily using : @u @v u = + =-@xy + @yx = 0 (8.6) r· @x @y That the flow is non-divergent and can be written in terms of a streamfunction implies that the stream- function and the vorticity ! must be related. Indeed they are! Specifically, the vertical component of the vorticity (!z = ⇣) is the Laplacian of the streamfunction:
! = ⇣ = 2 (8.7) z r
Vorticity represents a local (i.e. microscopic) measure of the rotational component of the flow. The value of vorticity at a point does not depend on the particular choice of an axis of rotation - it is a measure of the local “spin” of a fluid element. “If you put a paddle wheel in the flow, the paddle wheel will rotate if the vorticity is non-zero.” The circulation C is also a measure of the rotational component of the flow, but at a more global (macro- scopic) level. Circulation is defined as the integral of the velocity vector around a closed fluid loop:
C v dr (8.8) ⌘ · I Now, it would make sense that vorticity and circulation are related, as the circulation is just a macro- scopic measure of the rotational component of the flow, while vorticity is a microscopic measure. We will now demonstrate that our intuition is correct! Consider a case where the line integral for C lies in the x-y plane, and assume that the circuit is a small rectangle with sides x, y as shown below.