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Which boundary condition accompanies the inversion?

  • A.The wind at the surface
  • B.The value of the potential vorticity itself specified along the lateral edges of the domain concerned
  • C.The potential temperature on the upper and lower boundaries
  • D.The vertical velocity at the top and bottom of the domain over which the inversion is being carried out

Answer: C

Bretherton showed that a boundary temperature distribution is dynamically equivalent to a sheet of potential vorticity at the boundary, so specifying it completes the inversion problem. This is why a surface temperature anomaly can induce a circulation just as an interior potential vorticity anomaly does. Lateral conditions are needed for a limited domain but the vertical boundaries carry the physically essential information. Most errors here come from carrying a result across from a neighbouring case where it does not hold.

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