Vortex - Two-dimensional Modeling

Two-dimensional Modeling

When the particle velocities are constrained to be parallel to a fixed plane, one can ignore the space dimension perpendicular to that plane, and model the flow as a two-dimensional velocity field on that plane. Then the vorticity vector is always perpendicular to that plane, and can be treated as a scalar. This assumption is sometimes made in meteorology, when studying large-scale phenomena like hurricanes.

The behavior of vortices in such contexts is qualitatively different in many ways; for example, it does not allow the stretching of vortices that is often seen in three dimensions.