Zonal wind driven by inertial modes.

Inertial modes are oscillatory modes in rotating fluids. Shear layers appear in inertial modes in spherical shells that become singularities in the inviscid limit. It is shown here that the nonlinearity in the shear layers drives a zonal flow whose amplitude diverges in the inviscid limit. These results are relevant for the dynamics of planets and stars in which inertial modes are excited by tidal forcing.