The Barotropic Rossby Wave Drag Due to an Isolated Topography
Open Access
- 1 May 1977
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
- Vol. 34 (5) , 802-805
- https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1977)034<0802:tbrwdd>2.0.co;2
Abstract
A formula for the barotropic Rossby wave drag exerted by an arbitrary shallow topography on a homogeneous eastward flow is obtained under the requirements that U/f0L≪1, hM/H=O(U/f0L) and L<LW≡(U/β)½, where U is the speed of the flow, hM, the maximum height of the topography, L the horizontal scale of the topography and H the vertical distance between the horizontal planes confining the flow. The drag force,where V is the volume of the topography, Γ(≡f0V/H) is the topographically induced circulation, and Xk¯,Yk¯=∫∫(Xk,Yk)h(x,y)dxdy/V. A typical case is computed and the wave drag per unit area is found to be approximately 1.3 N m−2. This implies an energy dissipation rate of 20 W m−2 which is comparable to the kinetic energy generated in a cyclone, and is several times that due to frictional dissipation. The effects of stratification and compressibility are discussed; the former generally has no effect on the drag while the latter increases the drag by a factor of 1.6.Keywords
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