Formation of the thermal-driven boundary jet in an f-plane mesoscale basin

The paper adopts an f-plane quasi-geostrophic inertial model without linearization to investigate the perturbation temperature, boundary jet and upwelling (downwelling) in an idealized rectangular basin, under the consideration of west side friction layer and heat conservation. There is net heat input on the upper surface and equal quality heat dissipation on the west boundary, and without heat exchange on other boundaries, then the heat is conservation in the whole basin. Results show that there is thermal front due to denseness of the perturbation temperature in the west side boundary, the perturbation pressure and flow field are reversal on the upper layer and bottom layer. On the bottom layer, the west coastal current is northward, and the maximum perturbation pressure center is on the west, however, on the upper layer, the east coastal current is southward, and the maximum perturbation pressure center is on the east. There is strong vertical flow in narrow western boundary layer, and also in the central zone. The effect of different upper thermal forcings is also studied, and it can be concluded that there is always temperature denseness and boundary jet near the west boundary, and the appearance of flow field reversal, but the distribution of vertical flow is rather different.