Nonlinear source-sink flow in a rotating pie-shaped basin

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Source-sink flows in a rotating pie-shaped basin provide a laboratory analogue of wind-driven ocean circulation (Stommel, Arons & Faller 1958). Experiments and theory are presented here for flows which are mildly nonlinear. Theory and experiment show satisfactory agreement for the intense flow in the western boundary-layer region which contains the strongest nonlinear effects. The strengths of the sources and sinks were increased in the experiments in an attempt to induce an instability in the western boundary layer. However, the western boundary layer was always stable, even for relatively large Rossby numbers. Photographs from experiments with a basin of semicircular cross-section show the difference between eastern and western boundary layers in a striking manner.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: