Effects of Rotation on Vorticity Dynamics on a Sphere with Discrete Exterior Calculus

Abstract

We investigate incompressible, inviscid vorticity dynamics on a rotating unit sphere using a Discrete Exterior Calculus (DEC) scheme. For a prescribed initial vorticity distribution, we vary the rate of rotation of the sphere from zero (non-rotating case, which corresponds to infinite Rossby number (Ro)) to 320 (which corresponds to Ro = $1.30\times 10^{-3}$), and investigate the evolution with time of the vorticity field. For the non-rotating case, the vortices evolve into thin filaments due to so-called forward/direct enstrophy cascade. At late times an oscillating quadrupolar vortical field emerges as a result of the inverse energy cascade. Rotation diminishes the forward cascade of enstrophy (and hence the inverse cascade of energy) and tend to align the vortical structures in the azimuthal/zonal direction. Our investigation reveals that, for the initial vorticity field comprising of intermediate-wavenumber spherical harmonics, the zonalization of the vortical structures is not monotonic with ever decreasing Rossby numbers and the structures revert back to a non-zonal state below a certain Rossby number. On the other hand, for the initial vorticity field comprising of intermediate to large-wavenumber spherical harmonics, the zonalization is monotonic with decreasing Rossby number. Although, rotation diminishes the forward cascade of enstrophy, it does not completely cease/arrest the cascade.

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Discrete exterior calculus discretization of two-phase incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with a conservative phase field method