Past exam of the physics of atmospheres and oceans course of the University of Oxford / 2017 / 5 / a / Solution

Take an isothermal hydrostatic reference atmosphere, ${\rho }_0(z)={\rho }_s{e}^{-z/H}$, and linearize about rest. The horizontal acceleration and pressure-gradient force retain the equatorial Coriolis parameter $f\simeq \beta y$, with $\beta =2\Omega /a$. The traditional approximation retains only its vertical component. Quadratic perturbation advection is neglected. The vertical acceleration is balanced by perturbation buoyancy and pressure gradient after removing the reference hydrostatic balance.

The continuity constraint is the anelastic approximation, $\nabla \cdot ({\rho }_0\mathbf{u})=0$, giving $u_x+v_y+w_z-w/H=0$. It retains stratification-driven expansion while filtering acoustic density fluctuations. It is therefore not the full compressible continuity equation. Adiabatic displacement in a stably stratified background gives $b_t+N^{2}w=0$, with $N$ the Brunt–Väisälä frequency; upward displacement develops restoring negative buoyancy.

Pressure convention matters. With the entropy-buoyancy equation just described, a consistent reduced-pressure form writes the pressure acceleration as $-\nabla \Phi$, where $\Phi =p^{\prime }/{\rho }_0$. Its vertical term is $-{\partial }_z(p^{\prime }/{\rho }_0)$, not simply $-{\rho }_0^{-1}{p}_z^{\prime }$. The original source explicitly specifies variable ${\rho }_0(z)$ but prints the latter. Those differ by $p^{\prime }/({\rho }_{0}H)$, so the two cannot silently be equated. Parts b and c display the consequence and then solve the explicitly corrected reduced-pressure model that yields the requested wave equation. This is a mathematical inconsistency in the printed set, not missing source material.