Qn. Zheng et al., THE EFFECTS OF SHEAR-FLOW ON PROPAGATION OF ROSSBY WAVES IN THE EQUATORIAL OCEANS, Journal of physical oceanography, 24(7), 1994, pp. 1680-1687
The effects of strong meridional shear of mean flow on propagation of
long waves having a wavelength of about 1000 km and period of 25 days
observed in the equatorial Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are analyzed in
this paper. Information from the weekly multichannel sea surface temp
erature images derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiomet
er on board the NOAA series satellites from January 1986 to March 1999
is used for the statistics of the visual parameters of the waves. The
characteristic scales of the waves are estimated based on the results
by previous investigators and the statistical results of the present
study. Solving a potential vorticity equation, the authors obtain a di
spersion relation with an additional term depending on the flow shear
strength compared with that of the free Rossby wave. The theoretical m
odel provides a good explanation for the variable behavior of long-wav
e propagation.