arXiv subjects

K. Shafer Smith

Publications and source records attributed to K. Shafer Smith.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Frequency spreading of internal wave energy by balanced flows in two dimensions

Interactions between inertia-gravity waves and balanced flows lead to a spectral diffusion of wave action. Prior work has established that this diffusion is weak across constant frequency surfaces in three-dimensional settings, but can be significant in two dimensions with a non-stationary balanced flow. We investigate the two-dimensional setting through numerical simulations that simultaneously evolve a turbulent quasigeostrophic balanced flow and advect rotating shallow water wave packets. In contrast to earlier predictions based on the synthetic flows used by Dong et al. (J. Fluid Mech., 2020, vol. 905, R3), we find that frequency spreading from wave mean-flow interactions is weaker for realistic turbulent flows. We derive a timescale for frequency diffusion and show that frequency spreading with a realistic background flow is an order of magnitude smaller than with the synthetic flow. We narrow the discrepancy between the two- and three-dimensional induced diffusion theories, which suggests other mechanisms are responsible for the broadband frequency spectra seen in the atmosphere and ocean.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2025

Emergent vorticity asymmetry of one and two-layer shallow water system captured by a next-order balanced model

The turbulent evolution of the shallow water system exhibits asymmetry in vorticity. This emergent phenomenon can be classified as "balanced", that is, it is not due to the inertial-gravity wave modes. The Quasi-Geostrophic (QG) system, the canonical model for balanced motion, has a symmetric evolution of vorticity, thus misses this phenomenon. Here we present a next-order-in-Rossby extension of QG, QG$^{+1}$, in the shallow water context. We recapitulate the derivation of the model in one-layer shallow water grounded in physical principles and provide a new formulation using "potentials". Then, the multi-layer extension of the SWQG$^{+1}$ model is formulated for the first time. The SWQG$^{+1}$ system is still balanced in the sense that there is only one prognostic variable, potential vorticity (PV), and all other variables are diagnosed from PV. It filters out inertial gravity waves by design. This feature is attractive for modeling the dynamics of balanced motions that dominate transport in geophysical systems. The diagnostic relations connect ageostrophic physical variables and extend the massively useful geostrophic balance. Simulations of these systems in classical set-ups provide evidence that SWQG$^{+1}$ captures the vorticity asymmetry in the shallow water system. Simulations of freely decaying turbulence in one-layer show that SWQG$^{+1}$ can capture the negatively skewed vorticity, and simulations of the nonlinear evolution of a baroclinically unstable jet show that it can capture vorticity asymmetry and finite divergence of strain-driven fronts.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2025

Next-order balanced model captures submesoscale physics and statistics

Using nonlinear simulations in two settings, we demonstrate that QG$^\mathrm{+1}$, a potential-vorticity based next-order-in-Rossby balanced model, captures several aspects of ocean submesoscale physics. In forced-dissipative 3D simulations under baroclinically unstable Eady-type background states, the statistical equilibrium turbulence exhibits long cyclonic tails and a plethora of rapidly-intensifying ageostrophic fronts. Despite that the model requires setting an explicit, small value for the fixed scaling Rossby number, the emergent flows are nevertheless characterized by vorticity and convergence values larger than the local Coriolis frequency, as observed in upper-ocean submesoscale flows. Simulations of QG$^\mathrm{+1}$ under the classic strain-induced frontogenesis set-up show realistic frontal asymmetry and a provable finite time blow-up, quantitatively comparable to simulations of the semigeostrophic equations. The inversions in the QG$^\mathrm{+1}$ model are straightforward linear Poisson problems, allowing for the reconstruction of all flow fields from the PV and surface buoyancy, while avoiding the semigeostrophic coordinate transformation. Taken together, these results suggest QG$^\mathrm{+1}$ might be a useful tool for studying upper-ocean submesoscale dynamics.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2019

Fast and Accurate Computation of Vertical Modes

The vertical modes of linearized equations of motion are widely used by the oceanographic community in numerous theoretical and observational contexts. However, the standard approach for solving the generalized eigenvalue problem using second-order finite difference matrices produces $O(1)$ errors for all but the few lowest modes, and increasing resolution quickly becomes too slow as the computational complexity of eigenvalue algorithms increase as $O(n^3)$. Existing methods are therefore inadequate for computing a full spectrum of internal waves, such as needed for initializing a numerical model with a full internal wave spectrum. Here we show that rewriting the eigenvalue problem in stretched coordinates and projecting onto Chebyshev polynomials results in substantially more accurate modes than finite-differencing at a fraction of the computational cost. We also compute the surface quasigeostrophic modes using the same methods. All spectral and finite difference algorithms are made available in a suite of Matlab classes that have been validated against known analytical solutions in constant and exponential stratification.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2019

Energy-conserving Galerkin approximations for quasigeostrophic dynamics

A method is presented for constructing energy-conserving Galerkin approximations in the vertical coordinate of the full quasigeostrophic model with active surface buoyancy. The derivation generalizes the approach of Rocha \emph{et al.} (2016) to allow for general bases. Details are then presented for a specific set of bases: Legendre polynomials for potential vorticity and a recombined Legendre basis from Shen (1994) for the streamfunction. The method is tested in the context of linear baroclinic instability calculations, where it is compared to the standard second-order finite-difference method and to a Chebyshev collocation method. The Galerkin scheme is quite accurate even for a small number of degrees of freedom $N$, and growth rates converge much more quickly with increasing $N$ for the Galerkin scheme than for the finite-difference scheme. The Galerkin scheme is at least as accurate as finite differences and can in some cases achieve the same accuracy as the finite difference scheme with ten times fewer degrees of freedom. The energy-conserving Galerkin scheme is of comparable accuracy to the Chebyshev collocation scheme in most linear stability calculations, but not in the Eady problem where the Chebyshev scheme is significantly more accurate. Finally the three methods are compared in the context of a simplified version of the nonlinear equations: the two-surface model with zero potential vorticity. The Chebyshev scheme is the most accurate, followed by the Galerkin scheme and then the finite difference scheme. All three methods conserve energy with similar accuracy, despite not having any a priori guarantee of energy conservation for the Chebyshev scheme. Further nonlinear tests with non-zero potential vorticity to assess the merits of the methods will be performed in a future work.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2014

The effect of surface buoyancy gradients on oceanic Rossby wave propagation

Motivated by the discrepancy between satellite observations of coherent westward propagating surface features and Rossby wave theory, this paper revisits the planetary wave propagation problem, taking into account the effects of lateral buoyancy gradients at the ocean's surface. The standard theory for long baroclinic Rossby waves is based on an expansion of the quasigeostrophic stretching operator in normal modes, $ϕ_n(z)$, satisfying a Neumann boundary condition at the surface, $ϕ_n'(0) = 0$. Buoyancy gradients are, by thermal wind balance, proportional to the vertical derivative of the streamfunction, thus such modes are unable to represent ubiquitous lateral buoyancy gradients in the ocean's mixed layer. Here, we re-derive the wave propagation problem in terms of an expansion in a recently-developed "surface-aware" (SA) basis that can account for buoyancy anomalies at the ocean's surface. The problem is studied in the context of an idealized Charney-like baroclinic wave problem set in an oceanic context, where a surface mean buoyancy gradient interacts with a constant interior potential vorticity gradient that results from both $β$ and the curvature of the mean shear. The wave frequencies, growth rates and phases are systematically compared to those computed from a two-layer model, a truncated expansion in standard baroclinic modes and to a high-vertical resolution calculation that represents the true solution. The full solution generally shows faster wave propagation when lateral surface gradients are present. Moreover, the wave problem in the SA basis best captures the full solution, even with just a two or three modes.

physics.ao-ph↗