The Effect of Topography on Quasi-Geostrophic Frontogenesis

This paper improves Bannon’s work on the quasi-geostrophic frontogenesis in a horizontal deformation field. By setting the lower boundary condition for the equation of potential temperature on the realistic topography instead of on z = 0, a general solution for the temperature field is derived after applying conformal mapping to the equation for the potential temperature, the vertical velocity and divergence field are also calculated. The general characteristics for the frontogenetic process still are frontolytic for warm front and frontogenetic for cold front in downstream of a mountain and the reverse is true upstream of a mountain, but more fine spatial structure of the temperature field and frontogenetic characteristics than Bannon’s are obtained near surface because of the treatment of lower boundary condition. II is concluded that the frontogenetic characteristics are related to the translating speed of the deformation field with respect to the topography.