A note on free and forced Rossby wave solutions: The case of a straight coast and a channel

The forced RW solutions when the ocean's forcing is a single Fourier component are studied. If the forcing is resonant, i.e. a free Rossby wave (RW), the linear response will depend critically on whether the wave carries energy perpendicular to the channel or not. In the first case, the amplitude of the response is linear in the direction normal to the channel, y, and in the second it has a parabolic profile in y. Examples of these solutions are shown for channels with parameters resembling the Mozambique Channel, the Tasman Sea, the Denmark Strait and the English Channel. The solutions for the single coast are unbounded, except when the forcing is a RW trapped against the coast. If the forcing is non-resonant, exponentially decaying or trapped RWs could be excited in the coast and both the exponentially “decaying” and exponentially “growing” RW could be excited in the channel.