Multiscale Interactive Processes Underlying the Heavy Rainstorm Associated with a Landfalling Atmospheric River

The heavy precipitation in Northern California—brought about by a landfalling atmospheric river (AR) on 25–27 February 2019—is investigated for an understanding of the underlying dynamical processes. By the peaks in hourly accumulation, this rainstorm can be divided into two stages (Stage I and Stage II). Using a recently developed multiscale analysis methodology, i.e., multiscale window transform (MWT), and the MWT-based theory of canonical transfer, the original fields are reconstructed onto three scale windows, namely, the background flow, synoptic-scale and mesoscale windows, and the interactions among them are henceforth investigated. In both stages, the development of the precipitation is attributed to a vigorous buoyancy conversion and latent heating, and besides, the instability of the background flow. In Stage I, the instability is baroclinic, while in Stage II, it is barotropic. Interestingly, in Stage I, the mesoscale kinetic energy is transferred to the background flow where it is stored, and is released back in Stage II to the mesoscale window again, triggering intense precipitation.

Learning efficient navigation in vortical flow fields

Efficient point-to-point navigation in the presence of a background flow field is important for robotic applications such as ocean surveying. In such applications, robots may only have knowledge of their immediate surroundings or be faced with time-varying currents, which limits the use of optimal control techniques. Here, we apply a recently introduced Reinforcement Learning algorithm to discover time-efficient navigation policies to steer a fixed-speed swimmer through unsteady two-dimensional flow fields. The algorithm entails inputting environmental cues into a deep neural network that determines the swimmer’s actions, and deploying Remember and Forget Experience Replay. We find that the resulting swimmers successfully exploit the background flow to reach the target, but that this success depends on the sensed environmental cue. Surprisingly, a velocity sensing approach significantly outperformed a bio-mimetic vorticity sensing approach, and achieved a near 100% success rate in reaching the target locations while approaching the time-efficiency of optimal navigation trajectories.

Hydrodynamic model of fish orientation in a channel flow

For over a century, scientists have sought to understand how fish orient against an incoming flow, even without visual and flow cues. Here, we make an essential step to elucidate the hydrodynamic underpinnings of rheotaxis through the study of the bidirectional coupling between fish and the surrounding fluid. By modeling a fish as a vortex dipole in an infinite channel with an imposed background flow, we establish a planar dynamical system for the cross-stream coordinate and orientation. The system dynamics captures the existence of a critical flow speed for fish to successfully orient while performing cross-stream, periodic sweeping movements. Model predictions are validated against experimental observations in the literature on the rheotactic behavior of fish deprived of visual and lateral line cues. The crucial role of bidirectional hydrodynamic interactions unveiled by this model points at an overlooked limitation of existing experimental paradigms to study rheotaxis in the laboratory.

Vortex Layer on the β-Plane in the Miles – Ribner Formulation. Pole on the Real Axis

Purpose. The problem of a non-zonal vortex layer on the β-plane in the Miles – Ribner formulation is considered. It is known that in the absence of the β-effect, the vortex layer has no neutral eigenmodes, and the available two ones (varicose and sinusoidal) are unstable. Initially, generalization of the problem to the β-plane concerned only the zonal case. The problem for a non-zonal vortex layer is examined for the first time in the paper. It is known that in the WKB approximation for the linear wave disturbances (regardless of whether a zonal or non-zonal background flow is considered), there is an adiabatic invariant in the form of the law of the enstrophy (vorticity) conservation. For the zonal vortex layer, the enstrophy conservation law also holds, and no vorticity exchange occurs between the waves and the flow in the zonal case. The non-zonal vortex layer has qualitatively different features; particularly, it does not retain enstrophy. Thus, as a result, there appears a new class of solutions which can be interpreted as pure radiation of the Rossby waves by a non-zonal flow. Generalizing the vortex layer problem on the β-plane to the non-zonal case constitutes the basic aim of the present study. Methods and Results. A new class of linear stationary wave solutions, namely the Rossby waves, is found. It is shown a non-zonal flow can be directed in one way, whereas the stationary wave disturbances can move in the opposite (contrary) direction. The coexistence of such solutions for the shear non-zonal flow and stationary wave disturbances takes place due to the influence of the external force and mathematically comes from a non-self-adjoining character of the linear operator for a non-zonal background flow. Conclusions. There exists a new class of solutions that can be interpreted as pure radiation of the Rossby waves by a non-zonal flow. There is no such solution for a zonal flow. It is just non-zoning that gives the effect of pure radiation and corresponds to the classical definition of radiation. This approach makes it possible to eliminate inconsistency in terminology, when instabilities are mistakenly called radiation, and radiation – pure radiation.

Poleward Propagation of Typhoon-Induced Near-Inertial Waves in the Northern South China Sea

One of the main responses of the ocean to typhoons is the generation of near-inertial waves (NIWs), whose intrinsic frequency is close to the local inertial frequency. Based on the mooring observations, we carefully investigated the spatial–temporal variations in NIWs in the northern South China Sea (SCS) after Typhoon “Haima,” which passed through the northern SCS from October 20 to 21, 2016, with its track parallel to the mooring array on its northeast side. Moorings in different locations responded differently to this typhoon, with stronger NIWs found on the continental slope to the shelf break and relatively weak NIWs found on the shallow continental shelf. Strong NIWs appeared twice within a short period and showed different characteristics and frequencies. The first NIWs were generated locally with blue-shifted (super-inertial) frequencies. These initial NIWs were dominated by the first three baroclinic modes and rapidly weakened due to their propagation away and local dissipation. However, the second NIWs mainly consisted of higher baroclinic modes with red-shifted (sub-inertial) frequencies. The analysis of the mean background flow revealed that these red-shifted NIWs were excited at low latitudes, and subsequently advected by the poleward background flow to moorings whose latitudes were higher than their critical latitudes. Higher-mode (n > 3) NIWs were more easily carried away by mean background flow, and, at the same time, high-mode NIWs propagated downward to the subsurface layer, leading to the significant elevation of velocity shear therein. Given these findings, the mean background flow may provide an important route to redistributing the energy of the upper ocean imported from typhoons.

Balanced ellipsoidal vortex equilibria in a background shear flow at finite Rossby number

We consider a uniform ellipsoid of potential vorticity (PV), where we exploit analytical solutions derived for a balanced model at the second order in the Rossby number, the next order to quasi-geostrophic (QG) theory, the so-called QG+1 model. We consider this vortex in the presence of an external background shear flow, acting as a proxy for the effect of external vortices. For the QG model the system depends on four parameters, the height-to-width aspect ratio of the vortex, $h/r$ , as well as three parameters characterising the background flow, the strain rate, $\gamma$ , the ratio of the background rotation rate to the strain, $\beta$ , and the angle from which the flow is applied, $\theta$ . However, the QG+1 model also depends on the PV, as well as the Prandtl ratio, $f/N$ ( $f$ and $N$ are the Coriolis and buoyancy frequencies, respectively). For QG and QG+1 we determine equilibria for different values of the background flow parameters for increasing values of the imposed strain rate up to the critical strain rate, $\gamma _c$ , beyond which equilibria do not exist. We also compute the linear stability of this vortex to second-order modes, determining the marginal strain $\gamma _m$ at which ellipsoidal instability erupts. The results show that for QG+1 the most resilient cyclonic ellipsoids are slightly prolate, while anticyclonic ellipsoids tend to be more oblate. The highest values of $\gamma _m$ occur as $\beta \to 1$ . For large values of $f/N$ , changes in the marginal strain rates occur, stabilising anticyclonic ellipsoids while destabilising cyclonic ellipsoids.

A Simple Model for Wildland Fire Vortex–Sink Interactions

A model is developed to explore fire–atmosphere interactions due to the convective sink and vorticity sources in a highly simplified and idealized form, in order to examine their effect on spread and the stability of various fire front geometries. The model is constructed in a cellular automata framework, is linear, and represents a background flow, convective sink, and vortices induced by the fire plume at every burning cell. We use standard techniques to solve the resulting Poisson equations with careful attention to the boundary conditions. A modified Bresenham algorithm is developed to represent convection. The three basic flow types—large-scale background flow, sink flow, and vortex circulation—interact in a complex fashion as the geometry of the fire evolves. Fire-generated vortex–sink interactions produce a range of fire behavior, including unsteady spread rate, lateral spreading, and dynamic fingering. In this simplified framework, pulsation is found associated with evolving fire-line width, a fire-front acceleration in junction fires, and the breakup of longer initial fire lines into multiple head fires. Fuel is very simply represented by a single burn time parameter. The model fuel is uniform yet patchiness occurs due to a dynamic interaction of diffusive and convective effects. The interplay of fire-induced wind and the geometry of the fire front depends also on the fuel burn time.

Sound reflection of acoustic porous metasurfaces under uniform mean flow

Acoustic metasurfaces are artificial 2D structures with a sub-wavelength thickness that can realize some exotic properties such as non-trivial refraction, broadband and low frequency absorption. However, most relevant studies are still in a static medium, hindering their realistic applications in aviation, where background flow exists. To address it, the effects of mean flow on the acoustic performance of metasurfaces, which is designed based on the generalized Snell's law (GSL) to achieve anomalous reflections, are systemically studied. Firstly, an analytical model of GSL taking the effect of background uniform mean flow into account is built, in which the wavenumbers of both incident and reflected waves are corrected. Then, taking an acoustic porous metasurface for instance, the effectiveness of the derived model is validated by numerical simulations. Results reveal that the reflected waves are deflected in the presence of background flow. The critical incident angle, at which the incident sound wave is converted to surface wave, decreases with the increasing flow velocity. Since the converted surface wave can only propagate along the metasurface, there is little sound energy radiated into far field, which is benefit for the noise attenuation in the presence of flow.

Seasonality and Dynamics of Atmospheric Teleconnection from the Tropical Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific to West Antarctica

The global impact of the tropical Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific (IOWP) is expected to increase in the future because this area has been continuously warming due to global warming; however, the impact of the IOWP forcing on West Antarctica has not been clearly revealed. Recently, ice loss in West Antarctica has been accelerated due to the basal melting of ice shelves. This study examines the characteristics and formation mechanisms of the teleconnection between the IOWP and West Antarctica for each season using the Rossby wave theory. To explicitly understand the role of the background flow in the teleconnection process, we conduct linear baroclinic model (LBM) simulations in which the background flow is initialized differently depending on the season. During JJA/SON, the barotropic Rossby wave generated by the IOWP forcing propagates into the Southern Hemisphere through the climatological northerly wind and arrives in West Antarctica; meanwhile, during DJF/MAM, the wave can hardly penetrate the tropical region. This indicates that during the Austral winter and spring, the IOWP forcing and IOWP-region variabilities such as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and Indian Ocean Basin (IOB) modes should paid more attention to in order to investigate the ice change in West Antarctica.