Download or read book The Role of Background Flow Variations in Stratified Flows Over Topography written by Ivan Skopovi and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the atmosphere and oceans feature density variations with depth, the flow of a density-stratified fluid over topography is central to various geophysical and meteorological applications and has been studied extensively. For reasons of convenience and mathematical tractability, the majority of theoretical treatments of stratified flow over a finite-amplitude obstacle assume idealized background flow conditions, namely constant free-stream velocity and either a homogeneous or two-layer buoyancy-frequency profile. In this work, a numerical model is developed that accounts for general variations in the buoyancy-frequency profile far upstream and the presence of unsteadiness in the free-stream velocity. The model employs a second-order projection method for solving the Euler equations for stratified flow over locally confined topography in a horizontally and vertically unbounded domain - the flow configuration most pertinent to atmospheric applications - combined with absorbing viscous layers at the upper and lateral boundaries of the computational domain. Using this model, a study is first made of the effect of variations in the buoyancy frequency on the generation of mountain gravity waves.