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On the consequences of non‐negative absolute vorticity
Author(s) -
Lun R. W.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49711247418
Subject(s) - geostrophic wind , vorticity , geopotential , bernoulli's principle , geopotential height , physics , potential vorticity , stream function , thermal wind , vorticity equation , balanced flow , kinetic energy , geodesy , meteorology , classical mechanics , mechanics , geology , mathematical analysis , mathematics , vortex , wind speed , geophysics , wind profile power law , thermodynamics , precipitation
It is shown that if the flow on an isobaric surface is such that the wind and mass fields satisfy the gradient wind equation, then the gradient of the Bernoulli function (the sum of the kinetic energy per unit mass and the geopotential) is everywhere perpendicular to the local wind vector and that, furthermore, if the absolute vorticity is non‐negative, the direction of increase of the Bernoulli function bears the same relation to the wind vector as does the direction of increase of the geopotential to the geostrophic wind. Applications of this relationship are discussed.