Abstract
The maintenance of an elevated inversion in steady flow above a cold, rotating surface is shown to be possible for a certain range of the ‘buoyancy number’ bfV g, where b is the buoyant acceleration appropriate to the density deficiency of the fluid above the inversion, f is Coriolis parameter and V gis geostrophic velocity (so that fV gis also horizontal pressure gradient in kinematic units). The height of the inversion lid is determined by a balance of surface stress and buoyancy, in a way which may be deduced from laboratory experiments. With the aid of such empirical evidence a theory is constructed for the layer below the inversion lid. The cross-isobar angle of ground-level stress is found to increase with the buoyancy number, to a limiting value of 90‡, by which time the inversion descends to the ground. Under typical conditions, a temperature difference of order 10‡C is necessary to eliminate the possibility of an equilibrium, elevated inversion lid and reduce ground level wind stress to a vanishingly small value.
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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Contribution #3011
On leave from the University of Waterloo, Ontario
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Csanady, G.T. Equilibrium theory of the planetary boundary layer with an inversion lid. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 6, 63–79 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00232477
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00232477