LINEAR TRANSFORMATION OF ROSSBY WAVES IN SHEAR FLOWS

The dynamics of a shallow, nonuniformly rotating atmosphere in the pre sence of a zonal shear flow is studied. A new effective mechanism, whi ch is ignored in the standard quasigeostrophic approximation that lead s to the Charney-Obukhov equation, is demonstrated for the transformat ion of Rossby waves into inertial waves. The discovery of this phenome non was made possible by the application of the currently highly popul ar nonmodal analysis, in hydrodynamics, of the evolution of disturbanc es in hydrodynamic shear flows. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics .