Abstract (eng)
In 1905 Ekman investigated the behaviour of wind-drift ocean currents, in the attempt to explain Nansen’s observation of the surface current deflection to the right in arctic regions. He wrote down an explicit solution for the velocity components dependent on height, assuming a constant eddy viscosity. In 2020, D.G. Dritschel, N. Paldor, and A. Constantin found an explicit solution to the depth-dependent velocity components for variable eddy viscosity and for the deflection angle, i.e. the behaviour of the Ekman spiral under the sea surface. In this thesis we derive an explicit solution to the velocity components in the atmosphere, investigate the deflection angle and graph the behaviour. After a brief motivation, we present the various atmospheric layers, we introduce the Navier-Stokes equations in rotating spherical coordinates and derive the dimensionless equations of motion for steady flow in the Ekman layer of non-equatorial regions of the northern hemisphere. The third section deals with the exact solution of the equations of motion and the relevant boundary conditions in the f -plane approximation. In the fourth section we calculate the Ekman spiral for the solved velocity components. The fifth section deals with interpretations of the behaviour of the deflection angle on the surface and the Ekman-spiral in general, which are dependent on height, eddy viscosity and the jump point of the piecewise-constant eddy viscosity, by explicit calculations and graphs. Some summarizing conclusions are provided in Section 6.