Numerical study of vertical shear and stratification effects on the evolution of a vortex pair

Our results show that the Richardson number (the ratio of stratification forces to shear forces) is an important parameter in the evolution. When the Richardson number is large, the vortex pair evolves more or less symmetrically, the left and right vortex decaying equally, or nearly equally, rapidly. In this case, the effect of the shear is small, and stratification dominates the evolution. When the Richardson number is sufficiently small, however, the evolution is dramatically different