Stable and symmetric quasi-geostrophic barotropic flows over topography

Abstract

It is known that over a flat bottom, Taylor’s vortex is dynamically stable. The requirement of stability in the presence of a modulated topography with definite symmetry properties allows to modify the stream function of the vortex. The resulting solutions exhibit the same symmetry properties as the topography, and admit a variety of coupled vortices parametrized by the strength of the topography itself.