TY - JOUR
T1 - On the Instabilities and Transitions of the Western Boundary Current
AU - Daozhi Han, Marco Salvalaglio & Quan Wang
JO - Communications in Computational Physics
VL - 1
SP - 35
EP - 56
PY - 2019
DA - 2019/02
SN - 26
DO - http://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.OA-2018-0066
UR - https://global-sci.org/intro/article_detail/cicp/13025.html
KW - Western boundary current, dynamic transition, instability, Hopf bifurcation, spectral
method.
AB - <p style="text-align: justify;">We study the stability and dynamic transitions of the western boundary currents in a rectangular closed basin. By reducing the infinite dynamical system to a
finite dimensional one via center manifold reduction, we derive a non-dimensional
transition number that determines the types of dynamical transition. We show by
careful numerical evaluation of the transition number that both continuous transitions
(supercritical Hopf bifurcation) and catastrophic transitions (subcritical Hopf bifurcation) can happen at the critical Reynolds number, depending on the aspect ratio and
stratification. The regions separating the continuous and catastrophic transitions are
delineated on the parameter plane.</p>