HORIZONTAL DIVERGENCE CAUSED BY MEANDERS OF A THIN JET

To study horizontal divergence, the thin jet model is applied to meand ers of a continuous potential vorticity front in a 1 1/2-layer (diverg ent barotropic) model. The distributions of the depth of the layer and the velocity component normal to the front are calculated on a coordi nate system along the front. The distributions of the horizontal diver gence are also investigated for some values of the Rossby number. In t he model, divergence appears on the front from the cyclonic curve to t he anticyclonic curve, and convergence appears on the front from the a nticyclonic curve to the cyclonic curve. Further, a large Rossby numbe r is found to cause an asymmetrical distribution of the horizontal div ergence. The calculated values of the divergence are compared with the observational data.