Rossby wave frequency change induced by small-scale topography

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

A homogenization technique is used to study the change in the frequency of planetary Rossby waves that results from their interaction with a small-scale two-dimensional topography. The frequency change is computed explicitly for a topography consisting of a random distribution of well-separated cylindrical seamounts; it corresponds to a phase-speed increase (decrease) when the hat-bottom Rossby wave frequency is larger (smaller) than a typical topographic frequency. The topography is also shown to lead to a finite damping of the Rossby waves, even in the limit of infinitesimally small Ekman friction.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1820-1826
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Physical Oceanography
Volume30
Issue number7
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2000

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • EXTRATROPICAL PLANETARY-WAVES
  • STRATIFIED OCEAN
  • VARIABLE DEPTH
  • SPHERES
  • SPEED

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