Laboratory study of a shear instability of an alongshore sea current

A laboratory study of the alongshore current shear instability in a rotating and nonrotating homogeneous fluid was carried out with special attention paid to the conditions of the coherent eddy structure formation in a shear flow. The cases with both cyclonic and anticyclonic velocity shear between the current core and the coast were reproduced in a wide range of nondimensional velocity shear variations. No coherent eddy-like structure formation was observed in the nonrotating fluid; the flow was always chaotic or turbulent. However, chains of coherent eddy-like structures were formed in the rotating fluid in the case with cyclonic velocity shear in a broad range of its variations. In the case with anticyclonic velocity shear, a chain of eddies was observed only when the velocity shear was quite low. When it was high, the flow was chaotic or turbulent. A physical model that explained the asymmetry in the conditions of the coherent eddy-like structure formation in the rotating fluid with cyclonic and anticyclonic velocity shear was considered. The laboratory results agreed with the observations of coherent submesoscale eddies in the Black Sea coastal zone.