Potential Vorticity Mixing in Hurricanes: Comparison of Nondivergent and Divergent Barotropic Vortices

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott R. Fulton ◽  
Wayne H. Schubert ◽  
Michael T. Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity

scholarly journals Integrable unsteady motion with an application to ocean eddies

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-151
Author(s):  
A. D. Kirwan, Jr. ◽  
B. L. Lipphardt, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Particle Motion ◽  
Gulf Stream ◽  
Incompressible Flows ◽  
Unsteady Motion ◽  
Ring System ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Ocean Eddies ◽  
Multilayered Systems

Abstract. Application of the Brown-Samelson theorem, which shows that particle motion is integrable in a class of vorticity-conserving, two-dimensional incompressible flows, is extended here to a class of explicit time dependent dynamically balanced flows in multilayered systems. Particle motion for nonsteady two-dimensional flows with discontinuities in the vorticity or potential vorticity fields (modon solutions) is shown to be integrable. An example of a two-layer modon solution constrained by observations of a Gulf Stream ring system is discussed.

scholarly journals Potential vorticity transport in weakly and strongly magnetized plasmas

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 042301
Author(s):  
Chang-Chun Chen ◽  
Patrick H. Diamond ◽  
Rameswar Singh ◽  
Steven M. Tobias
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Magnetized Plasmas ◽  
Vorticity Transport

scholarly journals Changes in U.S. East Coast Cyclone Dynamics with Climate Change

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 468-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher G. Marciano ◽  
Gary M. Lackmann ◽  
Walter A. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
East Coast ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sea Level Pressure ◽  
Cyclone Intensity ◽  
Field Amplification ◽  
Lateral Boundary Conditions ◽  
Relative Potential

Abstract Previous studies investigating the impacts of climate change on extratropical cyclones have primarily focused on changes in the frequency, intensity, and distribution of these events. Fewer studies have directly investigated changes in the storm-scale dynamics of individual cyclones. Precipitation associated with these events is projected to increase with warming owing to increased atmospheric water vapor content. This presents the potential for enhancement of cyclone intensity through increased lower-tropospheric diabatic potential vorticity generation. This hypothesis is tested using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model to simulate individual wintertime extratropical cyclone events along the United States East Coast in present-day and future thermodynamic environments. Thermodynamic changes derived from an ensemble of GCMs for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) A2 emissions scenario are applied to analyzed initial and lateral boundary conditions of observed strongly developing cyclone events, holding relative humidity constant. The perturbed boundary conditions are then used to drive future simulations of these strongly developing events. Present-to-future changes in the storm-scale dynamics are assessed using Earth-relative and storm-relative compositing. Precipitation increases at a rate slightly less than that dictated by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation with warming. Increases in cyclone intensity are seen in the form of minimum sea level pressure decreases and a strengthened 10-m wind field. Amplification of the low-level jet occurs because of the enhancement of latent heating. Storm-relative potential vorticity diagnostics indicate a strengthening of diabatic potential vorticity near the cyclone center, thus supporting the hypothesis that enhanced latent heat release is responsible for this regional increase in future cyclone intensity.

scholarly journals Correlation between Buoyancy Flux, Dissipation and Potential Vorticity in Rotating Stratified Turbulence

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Duane Rosenberg ◽  
Annick Pouquet ◽  
Raffaele Marino
Keyword(s):  
Energy Dissipation ◽  
Kinetic Energy ◽  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Isotropic Turbulence ◽  
Joint Probability ◽  
Buoyancy Flux ◽  
Turbulent Regime ◽  
Stratified Turbulence ◽  
Low Dissipation ◽  
Linear And Nonlinear

We study in this paper the correlation between the buoyancy flux, the efficiency of energy dissipation and the linear and nonlinear components of potential vorticity, PV, a point-wise invariant of the Boussinesq equations, contrasting the three identified regimes of rotating stratified turbulence, namely wave-dominated, wave–eddy interactions and eddy-dominated. After recalling some of the main novel features of these flows compared to homogeneous isotropic turbulence, we specifically analyze three direct numerical simulations in the absence of forcing and performed on grids of 10243 points, one in each of these physical regimes. We focus in particular on the link between the point-wise buoyancy flux and the amount of kinetic energy dissipation and of linear and nonlinear PV. For flows dominated by waves, we find that the highest joint probability is for minimal kinetic energy dissipation (compared to the buoyancy flux), low dissipation efficiency and low nonlinear PV, whereas for flows dominated by nonlinear eddies, the highest correlation between dissipation and buoyancy flux occurs for weak flux and high localized nonlinear PV. We also show that the nonlinear potential vorticity is strongly correlated with high dissipation efficiency in the turbulent regime, corresponding to intermittent events, as observed in the atmosphere and oceans.

Geostrophy via potential vorticity inversion in the Yucatan Channel

2001 ◽  
Vol 59 (5) ◽  
pp. 725-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ochoa ◽  
J. Sheinbaum ◽  
A. Badan ◽  
J. Candela ◽  
D. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Potential Vorticity Inversion ◽  
Yucatan Channel

scholarly journals Perturbing the potential vorticity field in mesoscale forecasts of two Mediterranean heavy precipitation events

2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 17224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Del-Mar Vich ◽  
Romualdo Romero ◽  
Evelyne Richard ◽  
Philippe Arbogast ◽  
Karine Maynard
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Vorticity Field ◽  
Precipitation Events

Local Mass Conservation and Velocity Splitting in PV-Based Balanced Models. Part II: Numerical Results

2007 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 1794-1810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali R. Mohebalhojeh ◽  
Michael E. McIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Wave Speed ◽  
Invariant Manifolds ◽  
Mass Conservation ◽  
Flow Speed ◽  
Local Mass ◽  
Potential Vorticity Inversion ◽  
Divergence Equation ◽  
Local Mass Conservation ◽  
Derivatives Of

The effects of enforcing local mass conservation on the accuracy of non-Hamiltonian potential-vorticity- based balanced models (PBMs) are examined numerically for a set of chaotic shallow-water f-plane vortical flows in a doubly periodic square domain. The flows are spawned by an unstable jet and all have domain-maximum Froude and Rossby numbers Fr ∼0.5 and Ro ∼1, far from the usual asymptotic limits Ro → 0, Fr → 0, with Fr defined in the standard way as flow speed over gravity wave speed. The PBMs considered are the plain and hyperbalance PBMs defined in Part I. More precisely, they are the plain-δδ, plain-γγ, and plain-δγ PBMs and the corresponding hyperbalance PBMs, of various orders, where “order” is related to the number of time derivatives of the divergence equation used in defining balance and potential-vorticity inversion. For brevity the corresponding hyperbalance PBMs are called the hyper-δδ, hyper-γγ, and hyper-δγ PBMs, respectively. As proved in Part I, except for the leading-order plain-γγ each plain PBM violates local mass conservation. Each hyperbalance PBM results from enforcing local mass conservation on the corresponding plain PBM. The process of thus deriving a hyperbalance PBM from a plain PBM is referred to for brevity as plain-to-hyper conversion. The question is whether such conversion degrades the accuracy, as conjectured by McIntyre and Norton. Cumulative accuracy is tested by running each PBM alongside a suitably initialized primitive equation (PE) model for up to 30 days, corresponding to many vortex rotations. The accuracy is sensitively measured by the smallness of the ratio ϵ = ||QPBM − QPE||2/||QPE||2, where QPBM and QPE denote the potential vorticity fields of the PBM and the PEs, respectively, and || ||2 is the L2 norm. At 30 days the most accurate PBMs have ϵ ≈ 10−2 with PV fields hardly distinguishable visually from those of the PEs, even down to tiny details. Most accurate is defined by minimizing ϵ over all orders and truncation types δδ, γγ, and δγ. Contrary to McIntyre and Norton’s conjecture, the minimal ϵ values did not differ systematically or significantly between plain and hyperbalance PBMs. The smallness of ϵ suggests that the slow manifolds defined by the balance relations of the most accurate PBMs, both plain and hyperbalance, are astonishingly close to being invariant manifolds of the PEs, at least throughout those parts of phase space for which Ro ≲ 1 and Fr ≲ 0.5. As another way of quantifying the departures from such invariance, that is, of quantifying the fuzziness of the PEs’ slow quasimanifold, initialization experiments starting at days 1, 2, . . . 10 were carried out in which attention was focused on the amplitudes of inertia–gravity waves representing the imbalance arising in 1-day PE runs. With balance defined by the most accurate PBMs, and imbalance by departures therefrom, the results of the initialization experiments suggest a negative correlation between early imbalance and late cumulative error ϵ. In such near-optimal conditions the imbalance seems to be acting like weak background noise producing an effect analogous to so-called stochastic resonance, in that a slight increase in noise level brings PE behavior closer to the balanced behavior defined by the most accurate PBMs when measured cumulatively over 30 days.

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