Two problems are considered.
In the first a coastal eddy is modelled as a barotropic vortex propagating along a coastal shelf. If the vortex speed matches the phase speed of any coastal trapped shelf wave modes, a shelf wave wake is generated leading to a flux of energy from the vortex into the wave field. Using a simple shelf geometry, we determine analytic expressions for the wave wake and the leading-order flux of wave energy. By considering the balance of energy between the vortex and wave field, this energy flux is then used to make analytic predictions for the evolution of the vortex speed and radius under the assumption that the vortex structure remains self-similar. These predictions are examined in the asymptotic limit of small rotation rate and shelf slope and tested against numerical simulations. If the vortex speed does not match the phase speed of any shelf wave, steady vortex solutions are expected to exist. We present a numerical approach for finding these nonlinear solutions and examine the parameter dependence of their structure.
Recently analysis of satellite altimetry and Argo float data led Ni et al. to argue that mesoscale dipoles are widespread features of the global ocean having a relatively uniform three-structure that can lead to strong vertical exchanges. In the sceond problem we show that almost all the features of the composite dipole they construct can be derived from a model for multipoles in the surface quasi-geostrophic equations for which we present a straightforward novel solution in terms of an explicit linear algebraic eigenvalue problem, allowing simple evaluation of the higher radial modes that appear to be present in the observations and suggesting that mass conservation may explain the observed frontogenetic velocities.