Jets

This is a discussion of concentrated large-scale flows in planetary atmospheres and oceans, argued from the viewpoint of basic geophysical fluid dynamics. We give several elementary examples in which these flows form jets on rotating spheres. Jet formation occurs under a variety of circumstances: when flows driven by external stress have a rigid boundary which can balance the Coriolis force, and at which further concentration can be caused by the beta effect; when there are singular lines like the line of vanishing windstress or windstress-curl, or the Equator; when compact sources of momentum, heat or mass radiate jet-like beta plumes along latitude circles; when random external stirring of the fluid becomes organized by the beta effect into jets; when internal instability of the mass field generates zonal flow which then is concentrated into jets; when bottom topographic obstacles radiate jets, and when frontogenesis leads to shallow jet formation. Essential to the process of jet formation in stratified fluids is the baroclinic life cycle described in geostrophic turbulence studies; there, conversion from potential to kinetic energy generates eddy motions, and these convert to quasibarotropic motions which then radiate and induce jet-like large-scale circulation. Ideas of potential vorticity stirring by eddies generalize the notion of Rossby-wave radiation, showing how jets embedded in an ambient potential vorticity gradient (typically due to the spherical geometry of the rotating planet) gain eastward momentum while promoting broader, weaker westward circulation. Homogenization of potential vorticity is an important limit point, which many geophysical circulations achieve. This well-mixed state is found in subdomains of the terrestrial midlatitude oceans, the high-latitude circumpolar ocean, and episodically in the middle atmosphere. Homogenization expels potential vorticity gradients vertically to the top and bottom of the fluid, and sideways to the edges of flow domains or gyres; in both these ways is jet formation enhanced.