Abstract Rossby waves are a pervasive feature of the large-scale motions Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. These (also known as planetary r-modes) also play an important role in dynamics different astrophysical objects such solar interior, discs, rapidly rotating stars, exoplanetary atmospheres. This paper provides review theoretical observational aspects on spatial temporal scales various setting...

We report experimental results on spiral and scroll waves in the 1,4-cyclohexanedione Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. The propagating concentration waves are detected by two-dimensional photometry and optical tomography. Wave pulses can disappear in front-to-front and front-to-back collisions. This anomaly causes the nucleation of vortices from collisions of three nonrotating waves. In three-dim...

Intense vortices in the atmosphere and ocean exhibit a high degree of axisymmetry despite persistent asymmetric forcing from their environment. To further elucidate vortex axisymmetrization a variety of idealized initial-value models for barotropic non-divergent flow is considered. To ensure basic understanding, disturbance evolution is first examined in a rectilinear system of simple shear. Pa...

This paper examines interaction between a barotropic point vortex and a steplike topography with a bayshaped shelf. The interaction is governed by two mechanisms: propagation of topographic Rossby waves and advection by the forcing vortex. Topographic waves are supported by the potential vorticity (PV) jump across the topography and propagate along the step only in one direction, having higher ...