The ambient flow response to a topographic obstacle is influenced by the scale, geometry and location of the orography as well as the strength and structure of the incident air stream. Greenland, the third-largest orographic obstacle on the Northern Hemisphere falls into the quasi-geostrophic, but nonlinear part of parameter space. In particular, as a major mountain range in the polar region and with its location contiguous to the North Atlantic storm track it has the potential to exert a significant impact upon the planetary- and synoptic-scale flow.

The nature of the flow response on this scale is investigated with numerical simulations performed with an idealized primitive equation model. Ambient settings examined include a barotropic westerly flow of (a) uniform angular velocity, (b) uniform potential vorticity and (c) an additional localized vortex advecting toward the mountain. Theoretical considerations are invoked to interpret the nature of the balanced flow perturbation. Together these approaches help elicit the quintessential dynamical features of the interaction that can ensue in realized events.