Long-time behavior of a two-layer model of baroclinic quasi-geostrophic turbulence Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We study a viscous two-layer quasi-geostrophic beta-plane model that is forced by imposition of a spatially uniform vertical shear in the eastward (zonal) component of the layer flows, or equivalently a spatially uniform north-south temperature gradient. We prove that the model is linearly unstable, but that nonlinear solutions are bounded in time by a bound which is independent of the initial data and is determined only by the physical parameters of the model. We further prove, using arguments first presented in the study of the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, the existence of an absorbing ball in appropriate function spaces, and in fact the existence of a compact finite-dimensional attractor, and provide upper bounds for the fractal and Hausdorff dimensions of the attractor. Finally, we show the existence of an inertial manifold for the dynamical system generated by the model's solution operator. Our results provide rigorous justification for observations made by Panetta based on long-time numerical integrations of the model equations. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS

altmetric score

  • 0.25

author list (cited authors)

  • Farhat, A., Panetta, R. L., Titi, E. S., & Ziane, M.

citation count

  • 3

complete list of authors

  • Farhat, Aseel||Panetta, R Lee||Titi, Edriss S||Ziane, Mohammed

publication date

  • November 2012