On the generation mechanisms of short-scale unbalanced modes in rotating two-layer flows with vertical shear

We report on the results of a laboratory investigation using a rotating two-layer annulus experiment, which exhibits both large-scale vortical modes and short-scale divergent modes. A sophisticated visualization method allows us to observe the flow at very high spatial and temporal resolution. The balanced long-wavelength modes appear only when the Froude number is supercritical (i.e. F > F critical ≡ π²/2), and are therefore consistent with generation by a baroclinic instability. The unbalanced short-wavelength modes appear locally in every single baroclinically unstable flow, providing perhaps the first direct experimental evidence that all evolving vortical flows will tend to emit freely propagating inertia-gravity waves. The short-wavelength modes also appear in certain baroclinically stable flows. We infer the generation mechanisms of the short-scale waves, both for the baroclinically unstable case in which they co-exist with a large-scale wave, and for the baroclinically stable case in which they exist alone. The two possible mechanisms considered are spontaneous adjustment of the large-scale flow, and Kelvin-Helmholtz shear instability. Short modes in the baroclinically stable regime are generated only when the Richardson number is subcritical (i.e. Ri < Ri critical ≡1), and are therefore consistent with generation by a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. We calculate five indicators of short-wave generation in the baroclinically unstable regime, using data from a quasi-geostrophic numerical model of the annulus. There is excellent agreement between the spatial locations of short-wave emission observed in the laboratory, and regions in which the model Lighthill/Ford inertia-gravity wave source term is large. We infer that the short waves in the baroclinically unstable fluid are freely propagating intertia-gravity waves generated by spontaneous adjustment of the large-scale flow