Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-73/4/iv/solution

For , divide the two sink terms by . Put
The requested ratio is
Here and . With stable stratification , diverges at both and , and has a single minimum at , with . Increasing the stable density-gradient magnitude increases , lifting the minimum and moving it rightward. When the mass density gradient vanishes, and the curve reduces to the straight line , with zero only as a limiting value at where the original ratio is undefined.
Figure 1.
Sink-to-production ratio for zero, subcritical, critical and supercritical density gradients
. Details.
The plot uses and , so . The horizontal line selects equilibria: two positive intersections for , one double intersection at , and none above it. The zero-gradient line has one positive equilibrium; its formal zero root before division by is the non-turbulent state.

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