Use the shallow-water approximation, a hydrostatic vertically mixed layer, a deep motionless ambient, and no ambient fluid entrainment. Particle loss changes reduced gravity but changes total layer volume only at the discarded dilute-particle order. Likewise thermal expansion changes the equation of state while the leading Boussinesq approximation retains volume conservation. Define
Depth integration of mass conservation, horizontal momentum balance, particle transport, and the heating law gives
Here the integrated excess hydrostatic pressure is . There is no particle source from the bed. Bed drag and the particle contribution to inertia are neglected at this order. The equivalent variable-buoyancy shallow water equations are
The term is necessary when heating or particle loss makes the reduced gravity vary horizontally.
For , the quasilinear system has
Its characteristic polynomial factors as
Thus the characteristic curves have slopes
On the two repeated contact characteristic curves, the particle and heating laws are and . Writing and , the gravity-wave compatibility relations are
For and , gravity-wave right eigenvectors can be taken as . The contact eigenspace has dimension two: and , with independent . Therefore has a full set of real eigenvectors.
The system is hyperbolic throughout strict static stability, but not strictly hyperbolic because the contact speed is repeated. At the eigenvalues coalesce and this diagonalizability is lost; when the gravity-wave speeds become complex, reflecting the loss of a statically stable lower layer.
Define the concentration-dependent reduced gravity
Under the Boussinesq approximation, the three shallow water equations can be written in advective form as
The coefficient matrix of this quasilinear system has characteristic speeds
Thus this is a hyperbolic system when . Along the intermediate characteristic curve , the concentration obeys
It decreases because ambient entrainment dilutes the chemical; detrainment does not change the concentration of a well-mixed parcel.