Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics

Abstract:

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group We present a series of experimental investigations in which a differentially-heated annulus was used to investigate the effects of topography on rotating, stratified flows with similarities to the Earth’s atmospheric or oceanic circulation. In particular, we compare and investigate blocking effects via partial mechanical barriers to previous experiments by the authors utilising azimuthally-periodic topography. The mechanical obstacle used was an isolated ridge, forming a partial barrier, employed to study the difference between partially blocked and fully unblocked flow. The topography was found to lead to the formation of bottom-trapped waves, as well as impacting the circulation at a level much higher than the top of the ridge. This produced a unique flow structure when the drifting flow and the topography interacted in the form of an “interference” regime at low Taylor number, but forming an erratic “irregular” regime at higher Taylor number. The results also showed evidence of resonant wave-triads, similar to those noted with periodic wavenumber-3 topography by Marshall and Read (Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn., 2015, 109), though the component wavenumbers of the wave-triads and their impact on the flow were found to depend on the topography in question. With periodic topography, wave-triads were found to occur between both the baroclinic and barotropic components of the zonal wavenumber-3 mode and the wavenumber-6 baroclinic component, whereas with the partial barrier two nonlinear resonant wave-triads were noted, each sharing a common wavenumber-1 mode.

Abstract:

A series of laboratory experiments in a thermally driven, rotating fluid annulus are presented that investigate the onset and characteristics of phase synchronization and frequency entrainment between the intrinsic, chaotic, oscillatory amplitude modulation of travelling baroclinic waves and a periodic modulation of the (axisymmetric) thermal boundary conditions, subject to time-dependent coupling. The time-dependence is in the form of a prescribed duty cycle in which the periodic forcing of the boundary conditions is applied for only a fraction ߜ of each oscillation. For the rest of the oscillation, the boundary conditions are held fixed. Two profiles of forcing were investigated that capture different parts of the sinusoidal variation and ߜ was varied over the range 0.1 ൑ ߜ ൑ 1. Reducing ߜ was found to act in a similar way to a reduction in a constant coupling coefficient in reducing the width of the interval in forcing frequency or period over which complete synchronization was observed (the “Arnol’d tongue”) with respect to the detuning, though for the strongest pulselike forcing profile some degree of synchronization was discernible even at ߜ ൌ 0.1. Complete phase synchronization was obtained within the Arnol’d tongue itself, though the strength of the amplitude modulation of the baroclinic wave was not significantly affected. These experiments demonstrate a possible mechanism for intraseasonal and/or interannual “teleconnections” within the climate system of the Earth and other planets that does not rely upon Rossby wave propagation across the planet along great circles.