A FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD FOR INERTIAL WAVES IN A FRUSTUM

A finite-element method has been developed to model inertial waves in a frustum of a cone, since analytical methods have proved inadequate. The governing Poincare problem is posed as a variational principle and approximate eigensolutions are computed. The numerical results are used to complete the interpretation of the experimental results of Beardsley (1970) for a frustum of a cone. The significant role played by characteristic surfaces partly explains the enigmatic nature of the ill-posed boundary-value problem that describes inertial wave resonances.