Instability of quasi-geostrophic vortices in a two-layer ocean with a thin upper layer

Abstract

We examine the stability of a quasi-geostrophic vortex in a two-layer ocean with a thin upper layer on the f-plane. It is assumed that the vortex has a sign-definite swirl velocity and is localized in the upper layer, whereas the disturbance is present in both layers. The stability boundary-value problem admits three types of normal modes: fast (upper-layer-dominated) modes, responsible for equivalent-barotropic instability, and two slow baroclinic types (mixed- and lower-layer-dominated modes). Fast modes exist only for unrealistically small vortices (with a radius smaller than half of the deformation radius), and this paper is mainly focused on the slow modes. They are examined by expanding the stability boundary-value problem in powers of the ratio of the upper-layer depth to the lower-layer depth. It is demonstrated that the instability of slow modes, if any, is associated with critical levels, which are located at the periphery of the vortex. The complete (sufficient and necessary) stability criterion with respect to slow modes is derived: the vortex is stable if and only if the potential-vorticity gradient at the critical level and swirl velocity are of the same sign. Several vortex profiles are examined, and it is shown that vortices with a slowly decaying periphery are more unstable baroclinically and less barotropically than those with a fast-decaying periphery, with the Gaussian profile being the most stable overall. The asymptotic results are verified by numerical integration of the exact boundary-value problem, and interpreted using oceanic observations.