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Geostrophic fronts, bores, breaking and blocking waves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 April 2006

Melvin E. Stern
Melvin E. Stern
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, R.I. 02881
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Abstract

An undisturbed geostrophic density current flows along a vertical wall (the coast) with the free streamline (the front) located at a distance L from the wall which is comparable to the Rossby radius of deformation. Finite amplitude perturbations with downstream wavelengths much larger than L are discussed, and it is shown that the slope of the front in the horizontal plane increases with time. Some perturbations tend to ‘break’ seaward by developing large transverse velocities away from the coast. The temporal evolution of some perturbations is such as to completely ‘block’ the upstream flow, but the subsequent behaviour is beyond the scope of the theory. We also discuss the propagation of the nose of the intrusion when a density current debouches from a coastal source and then flows along the coastal boundary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 99 , Issue 4 , 29 August 1980 , pp. 687 - 703
Copyright
© 1980 Cambridge University Press

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