This code models the unforced, single-layer, linearized quasigeostrophic equation, \begin{equation} \label{eqn:QGChap2} \frac{\partial}{\partial t} \left( \nabla^2 \eta – \eta \right) + \frac{\partial \eta }{\partial x} = 0 \end{equation} where \(\eta\) represents the sea surface height.

The code is setup as an initial value problem. In the above movie you see an eddy initialized as a Gaussian that breaks apart into Rossby waves.

The code outputs the sea-surface height perturbation to a NetCDF file. A Matlab script is included to recreate the movie shown above.

The code is available for download from GitHub