Evolution of a synoptic-scale vortex advecting toward a high mountain

Cornelia B. Schwierz; Huw C. Davies

doi:10.3402/tellusa.v55i2.12091

Evolution of a synoptic-scale vortex advecting toward a high mountain

Tellus

Volume 55 (2003): Issue 2

By: Cornelia B. Schwierz and Huw C. Davies

Open Access

|Jan 2003

Abstract

A model-based study is undertaken of a synoptic-scale vortex’s encounter with Greenland-scale topography. The ambient setting is a barotropic westerly flow of uniform potential vorticity. This flow is both incident upon and induces an anticyclone over the topography, and it also serves to advect the vortex toward the mountain. In a simulated evolution of the flow the vortex circumnavigates poleward around the mountain but concomitantly undergoes significant dissolution on the windward side followed by a substantial reconstitution to the lee. It eventually advects away downstream as a compact vortex of reduced amplitude. This sequence of events is interpreted in terms of the combined influence of the orographic anticyclone and the self-dynamics of the vortex.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v55i2.12091 | Journal eISSN: 3035-9554

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Language: English

Page range: 158 - 172

Submitted on: Oct 26, 2001

Accepted on: Jul 2, 2002

Published on: Jan 1, 2003

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2003 Cornelia B. Schwierz, Huw C. Davies, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 55 (2003): Issue 2