ESS227
Prof. Jin-Yi Yu
Rossby Number
•Rossby number is a non-dimensional measure of the magnitude of the acceleration compared to the Coriolis
force:
•The smaller the Rossby number, the better the
geostrophic balance can
be used.
•Rossby number measure the relative importnace of the
inertial term and the Coriolis
term.
•This number is
about O(0.1) for Synoptic weather and about O(1) for ocean.
