Mathematical study of the equatorial Ekman boundary layer

Abstract

In this paper we study the well-posedness of a simple model of boundary layer for rotating fluids between two concentric spheres near the equator. We show that this model can be seen as a degenerate elliptic equation , for which we prove an existence result thanks to a Lax-Milgram type lemma. We also prove uniqueness under an additional integrability assumption and present a transparent boundary condition for such layers.