A Survey of Unbalanced Flow Diagnostics and Their Application

This paper presents an extensive survey of the most commonly used tools for diagnosing unbalanced flow in the atmosphere, namely the Lagrangian Rossby number, Psi vector, divergence equation, nonlinear balance equation, generalized omega-equation, and departure from fields obtained by potential vorticity (PV) inversion. The basic thoery, assumptions as well as implementation and limitations for each of the tools are all discussed. These tools are applied to high—resolution mesoscale model data to assess the role of unbalanced dynamics in the generation of a mesoscale gravity wave event over the East Coast of the United States. Comparison of these tools in this case study shows that these various methods agree to a large extent with each other though they differ in details. Key words Unbalanced flow - Geostrophic adjustment - Gravity waves - Nonlinear balance equation - Potential vorticity inversion - Omega equations - Rossby number This research was conducted under support from NSF grant ATM-9700626 of the United States. The numerical computations described herein were performed on the Cray T90 at the North Carolina Supercomputing Center and the Cray supercomputer at the NCAR Scientific Computing Division, which also provided the initialization fields for the MM5. Thanks are extended to Mark Stoelinga at University of Washington for the RIP post-processing package.

Characterizing the capability of mesoscale eddies to carry drifters in the northwest Pacific

Mesoscale eddies are common oceanic phenomena.Although many related studies have been conducted,the ability for mesoscale eddies to carry real particles remains poorly addressed.We considered the drifters as real particles to characterize the capability of mesoscale eddies to carry particles.Firstly,mesoscale eddies in the northwest Pacific(99°E-180°E,0°-66°N)were identified using sea level anomaly(SLA)data from 1993 to 2015.Secondly,three important parameters(the carrying days,the number of circles the drifter revolving around the eddy center,and the carrying distances)were calculated by colocalizing eddy data with drifters.Finally,statistical analysis and composite analysis were conducted,reflecting the capability of mesoscale eddies to carry particles.The mechanisms on the carrying capability of eddies were also discussed.Results show that(1)the motion of carried drifters reflects the upper limit of rotational speed of eddies that the drifters revolve around the eddy center by≤90°for one day in most cases;(2)the drifters tend to be carried for a longer time when their minimal distances to the eddy center measured with normalized distance are small;(3)there are two types of eddies(cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies)in different subregions of northwest Pacific,and each has a different carrying capability(on average,similar in the tropical ocean and Subtropical Countercurrent,cyclonic eddies tend to have stronger carrying capability in Southern Kuroshio Extension,and anticyclonic eddies tend to have stronger carrying capability in Northern Kuroshio Extension and Subarctic Gyre);(4)on average,the carried drifters tend to travel for a longer time around the normalized eddy radii ranging from 0.41 to 0.76;(5)the carrying days are related to the Rossby number of the eddy(in general when the Rossby number is smaller,the carrying days are longer).

Influence on the Solid−Liquid Two-Phase Flow from Cross-Section Area of Slurry Pumps for Deep-Sea Mining

To explore the mechanism of solid-liquid two-phase flow in deep-sea mining pumps,this paper investigates the influences of the impeller cross-section area on the multi-phase flow in the slurry pump.Experimental and numerical results are presented for two-phase flow in four impellers with different cross-section areas.They show that the degree of vortex strength and the passing capacity of particles increase as the cross-section area of the impeller.In addition,the correlations between the two-phase flow and cross-section area have been revealed by a mathematical model taking the force of the flow field into account.The simulation results confirm the theoretical analysis,while the experimental pump performances validate the numerical calculation.The influence of the cross-section area on two-phase flow and pump performance could provide theoretical support for the design of high-performance deep-sea mining slurry pumps.