Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Asymmetric evolution of eddies in rotating shallow water
Masazumi Arai1, Toshio Yamagata
1Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 812 JapanDepartment of Earth and Planetary Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113 Japan.
Abstract:
It is demonstrated that cyclones evolve in a way different from that of anticyclones in rotating shallow water. The anticyclones merge and eventually take circular coherent forms, but cyclones are elongated with active enstrophy cascading. This asymmetric evolution is strengthened with increasing surface displacements. When the initial surface displacement exceeds a certain critical value, the initial elongation of a cyclonic ellipse ends up with splitting in two cyclones. This splitting of the cyclonic ellipse is always associated with the first appearance of a saddle point inside the core, due to irrotational, ageostrophic motion. The appearance of the saddle point inside the core seems to be a necessary condition for splitting of the core of the cyclonic ellipse with surface displacements. The linear stability analysis of the elliptical vortex is consistent qualitatively with both of the simulation results and the kinematic axisymmetrization/elongation principle.
Related Concept Videos
Damped Oscillations
Although friction and other non-conservative...
Eddy Currents
Other major applications of eddy currents appear in metal detectors and the braking systems of trains and roller...
Irrotational Flow
Navier–Stokes Equations
Steady, Laminar Flow Between Parallel Plates
Partial Differential Equations

