A Viscous, Two-Layer Western Boundary Current Structure Function

Abstract

The classic oceanographic problem of a 1.5-layer western boundary current evolving along a straight wall is considered. Here, building upon the previous work of Charney, Huang and Kamenkovich, we have derived, solved and validated a new numerical formulation for accounting for viscous effects in such systems. The numerical formulation is validated against rotating table experimental results.

Keywords

• western boundary current
• stratified flow
• geophysical fluid dynamics