Marine hydrology

An instability of cross-equatorial meridional flow

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  • 1. Physical Oceanography Laboratory, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; 2. First Institute of Oceanography,SOA,Qingdao 266061, China; 3. National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing 100081, China

Received date: 2011-07-18

  Revised date: 2011-10-19

  Online published: 2013-02-06

Abstract

Our wavelet analysis of Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic Data (AVISO) sea surface height anomaly reveals an oscillation with a period of 30 days, which exists only inside the western boundary current region. The mechanism may be an instability of cross-equatorial current. The research tool is a simple equivalent shallow water model in the presence of background cross-equatorial current. By expanding the perturbation equation with Weber function and keeping the first four modes, the dispersion relation in the presence of cross-equatorial current is obtained. Our instability analysis demonstrates the existence of unstable modes in this boundary current region. The most unstable shortwave has a period of approximate 30 days, which is in accordance with the AVISO observations.

Cite this article

XU Zhao, CHAO Ji-ping, FENG Li-cheng . An instability of cross-equatorial meridional flow[J]. Journal of Tropical Oceanography, 2012 , 31(6) : 1 -5 . DOI: 10.11978/j.issn.1009-5470.2012.06.001

References

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[3] 巢纪平. 热带大气和海洋的半地转适应和发展运动[J]. 气象学报, 2000, 58:257-267.
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