Version 1
: Received: 27 April 2024 / Approved: 29 April 2024 / Online: 29 April 2024 (09:11:57 CEST)
How to cite:
Cohen, N.; Galperin, B.; Sukoriansky, S. Zonons Are Solitons Produced by Rossby Waves’ Ringing. Preprints2024, 2024041904. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1904.v1
Cohen, N.; Galperin, B.; Sukoriansky, S. Zonons Are Solitons Produced by Rossby Waves’ Ringing. Preprints 2024, 2024041904. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1904.v1
Cohen, N.; Galperin, B.; Sukoriansky, S. Zonons Are Solitons Produced by Rossby Waves’ Ringing. Preprints2024, 2024041904. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1904.v1
APA Style
Cohen, N., Galperin, B., & Sukoriansky, S. (2024). Zonons Are Solitons Produced by Rossby Waves’ Ringing. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1904.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Cohen, N., Boris Galperin and Semion Sukoriansky. 2024 "Zonons Are Solitons Produced by Rossby Waves’ Ringing" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1904.v1
Abstract
Along with the familiar Rossby–Haurwitz waves, two-dimensional flows on the surface of a rotating sphere in the regime of zonostrophic turbulence harbour another class of waves known as zonons. Zonons are wave packets produced by energetic large-scale Rossby–Haurwitz wave modes `enslaving’ other wave modes. They propagate westward with the phase speed of the enslaving modes. Zonons can be visualized as enslaving modes’ `ringing’ in the enslaved ones with the frequencies of the former, the property that renders zonons non-dispersive. Zonons reside in high-shear regions confined between the opposing zonal jets yet they are mainly attached to westward jets and sustained by the ensuing barotropic instability. They exchange energy with the mean flow while preserving their identity in a fully turbulent environment, a feature characteristic of solitary waves. The goal of this study is to deepen our understanding of zonons’ physics using direct numerical simulations, a weakly non-linear theory, and asymptotic analysis, and ascertain that zonons are indeed isomorphic to solitary waves in the Korteweg - de Vries framework. Having this isomorphism established, the analysis is extended to eddies detected in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn based upon the observed mean zonal velocity profiles and earlier findings that circulations on both planets obey the regime of zonostrophic macroturbulence. Not only the analysis confirms that many eddies and eddy trains on both giant planets indeed possess properties of zonons, but the theory also correctly predicts latitudinal bands that confine zonal trajectories of the eddies.
Keywords
n/a
Subject
Physical Sciences, Astronomy and Astrophysics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
