Experimental Observations of 3-D Lagrangian Motion in a Steady Baroclinic Wave

Abstract

Chaotic Lagrangian motion in a steady baroclinic wave, which is highly relevant to meteorological and oceanographical problems, was investigated by Sugata and Yoden (1994) by tracing a marked fluid particle for a long time in a numerical solution of their model. To test their result, we have conducted experiments on steady baroclinic waves in a differentially-heated rotating fluid annulus by tracking a 3-D trajectory of one neutrally buoyant tracer particle suspended in the fluid for a long time. We show here four trajectories that have been analyzed up to now. In the wavenumber-5 wave, the observed trajectories include the preferred routes of region transitions expected from the numerical investigation. This supports the Lagrangian view of the heat transport presented by Sugata and Yoden: The jet absorbs a large number of hot fluid particles from the outer boundary layer and releases them in the inner boundary layer, while the fluid particles nearly conserve their temperature in the meandering jet. Furthermore, it is of great interest that there was found one event of region transtion which does not take place in the numerical simulation. In the wavenumber-4 wave, however, the tracer particle was observed to remain trapped within the jet for a long time. This leads to the orthodox view of the heat transport: The jet absorbs a large amount of heat from the outer boundary and releases it into the inner boundary so that heating and cooling of the fluid particles take place during every cycle of the meander of the jet.