Potential-vorticity conservation still determines the final surface through
The unbounded problem only required decay or matching as and become large. The coast adds a boundary condition. In the adjusted geostrophic flow,
so must be constant along the connected wall. Odd symmetry and the arbitrary common height datum set that constant to zero:
This is a Dirichlet condition on , even though it originated as no normal flow.
The initial disturbance does not instantaneously know this along the whole coast. A southward coastal Kelvin wave for carries the pressure signal and establishes the constant wall height behind its wavefront. In the final streamline sketch, the quasi-geostrophic streamfunction is proportional to . Far from the wall the contours and current resemble the unbounded east--west front; near those contours bend through a right angle and run along the coast, so the incident geostrophic current turns into a southward boundary current instead of crossing the wall.
Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.
The eastern wall has no normal flow, so the quasi-geostrophic streamfunction is constant there. Choose . Integrating the Sverdrup relation gives
Since geostrophic balance gives ,
If this interior solution were extended to both walls, the west-minus-east height difference would be
The northward volume transport per unit meridional distance is
Thus
This is the basin-integrated form of Sverdrup balance.
Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.