Environmental Sciences Bulletin of The Korean Environmental Sciences Society
- 제3권2호
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- Pages.105-112
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- 1999
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- 1226-6957(pISSN)
The Nonlinear Stability of Density Fronts in the Ocean
- Yang Li (LASG, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences) ;
- Moon, Sung-Euii (Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Pusan National University) ;
- Ryu, Chan-Su (Department of Earth Sciences, Chosun Unviersity) ;
- Kim, Baek-Jo (Forecast Research Laboratory, Meteorological Research Institute)
- 발행 : 1999.08.01
초록
Density and temeprature fronts are common features of the ocean. However, frontal dynamics are not quasi-geostrophic because the isopycnal deflections associated with fronts are large compared with the scale height of the hydrostatic geopotential. The frontal geostrophic model, developed by Cushman-Roisin et al.(1992) is generally used fro describing the dynamics of surface-density ocean fronts, whereas the two-layer frontal geostrophic model is used for fronts on a sloping continental shelf. This paper investigates the baroclinic nonlinear stability of surface-density ocean fronts and fronts on a sloping continental shelf using the two-layer frontal geostrophic model mentioned above. Nonlinear stability criteria for the two kinds of fronts are obtained using Arnol'd's (1965; 1969) variational principle and a prior estimate method. This is the first time a nonlinear stability criterion for surface ocean fronts has been established, furthermore, the results obtained for fronts on a sloping bottom are superior to any previous ones.