Scaling of motion and governing equations for baroclinic large-scale motions in equatorial ocean

Abstract-An obvious characteristic of the baroclinic large-scale motions in the equatorial ocean is that the meridional scale H of motion is far smaller than the tonal scale L.The scaling of motion carefully with this striking characteristic in this paper results in two conclusions, i.e.,the Coriolis terms associated with the horizontal component of the rotation vector cannot be neglected in the governing equations; and the use of the absence of heating is not suitable to the equatorial region.In this paper the equatorial β-plane nondimensional governing equations with the small parameters δ₀ and δ₁ have been obtained.