A new approach to equatorial inertial instability

解决赤道惯性不稳定的新方法

• 批准号: 1538559
• 负责人: Rudolf Kloosterziel
• 金额: $ 49.46万
• 依托单位: University of Hawaii
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1538559&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: new; approach; equatorial; inertial; instability

By undertaking this investigation of equatorial inertial instability the understanding of the role that the instability plays in the destabilization and equilibration of ocean currents in equatorial regions will be significantly improved. New theories will be developed to help in improving our understanding of inertial instability in the near-equatorial regions. Results obtained through this research can have an important impact on the future development of ocean models. Small-scale, near-equatorial instabilities are not resolved in ocean models, but their role in developing and maintaining large-scale currents is very important. By studying these instabilities, their effects can be predicted and, hence, be parameterized in ocean models. Improvement in ocean modeling can have important impact on climate research because of the essential role that the equatorial ocean plays in controlling the climate.A comprehensive study of symmetric instability of parallel shear flows for the equatorial beta-plane will be conducted by incorporating the full Coriolis force. Results will be contrasted with the commonly used traditional beta-plane approximation. The potentially extremely rapid downward mixing resulting from the instability with the 'true' Coriolis force suggests that the traditional approximation is a very poor one. Under terrestrian circumstances the horizontal scales are disturbingly small and therefore never resolved in global ocean circulation models. The correct redistribution of momentum, downward buoyancy flux and energy dissipation are thus not accurately accounted for. The proposed research will help in determining the correct parameterizations of these processes.

通过对赤道惯性不稳定性进行这种调查，将大大提高对不稳定性在赤道地区洋流的不稳定和平衡中所起作用的理解。将发展新的理论，以帮助提高我们对近赤道区域惯性不稳定性的认识。通过这项研究所获得的结果可以对海洋模式的未来发展产生重要影响。小尺度、近赤道不稳定性在海洋模式中没有得到解决，但它们在发展和维持大尺度海流方面的作用非常重要。通过研究这些不稳定性，可以预测其影响，从而在海洋模型中进行参数化。由于赤道海洋在控制气候方面的重要作用，海洋模式的改进将对气候研究产生重要影响。结果将与常用的传统β-平面近似进行对比。潜在的非常快速的向下混合所造成的不稳定性与“真正的”科里奥利力表明，传统的近似是一个非常差的。在陆地环境下，水平尺度小得令人不安，因此在全球海洋环流模型中从未解决过。因此，动量的正确再分配、向下浮力通量和能量耗散没有得到准确的解释。建议的研究将有助于确定这些过程的正确参数化。