A barotropic model of eddy saturation
"Eddy saturation" refers to a regime in which the total volume transport of an oceanic current is insensitive to the wind stress strength. Baroclinicity is currently believed to be key to the development of an eddy-saturated state. In this paper, it is shown that eddy saturation can also o...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.1703.06594 2023-05-15T18:25:39+02:00 A barotropic model of eddy saturation Constantinou, Navid C. 2017 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1703.06594 https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.06594 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-17-0182.1 arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2017 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1703.06594 https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-17-0182.1 2022-04-01T10:53:16Z "Eddy saturation" refers to a regime in which the total volume transport of an oceanic current is insensitive to the wind stress strength. Baroclinicity is currently believed to be key to the development of an eddy-saturated state. In this paper, it is shown that eddy saturation can also occur in a purely barotropic flow over topography, without baroclinicity. Thus, eddy saturation is a fundamental property of barotropic dynamics above topography. It is demonstrated that the main factor controlling the appearance or not of eddy-saturated states in the barotropic setting is the structure of geostrophic contours, that is the contours of $f/H$ of the ratio of the Coriolis parameter to the ocean's depth. Eddy-saturated states occur when the geostrophic contours are open, that is when the geostrophic contours span the whole zonal extent of the domain. This minimal requirement for eddy-saturated states is demonstrated using numerical integrations of a single-layer quasi-geostrophic flow over two different topographies characterized by either open or closed geostrophic contours with parameter values loosely inspired by the Southern Ocean. In this setting, transient eddies are produced through a barotropic-topographic instability that occurs due tot the interaction of the large-scale zonal flow with the topography. Through the study of this barotropic-topographic instability insight is gained on how eddy-saturated states are established. : 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to the Journal of Physical Oceanography Text Southern Ocean DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Southern Ocean |
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topic |
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences |
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Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences Constantinou, Navid C. A barotropic model of eddy saturation |
topic_facet |
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences |
description |
"Eddy saturation" refers to a regime in which the total volume transport of an oceanic current is insensitive to the wind stress strength. Baroclinicity is currently believed to be key to the development of an eddy-saturated state. In this paper, it is shown that eddy saturation can also occur in a purely barotropic flow over topography, without baroclinicity. Thus, eddy saturation is a fundamental property of barotropic dynamics above topography. It is demonstrated that the main factor controlling the appearance or not of eddy-saturated states in the barotropic setting is the structure of geostrophic contours, that is the contours of $f/H$ of the ratio of the Coriolis parameter to the ocean's depth. Eddy-saturated states occur when the geostrophic contours are open, that is when the geostrophic contours span the whole zonal extent of the domain. This minimal requirement for eddy-saturated states is demonstrated using numerical integrations of a single-layer quasi-geostrophic flow over two different topographies characterized by either open or closed geostrophic contours with parameter values loosely inspired by the Southern Ocean. In this setting, transient eddies are produced through a barotropic-topographic instability that occurs due tot the interaction of the large-scale zonal flow with the topography. Through the study of this barotropic-topographic instability insight is gained on how eddy-saturated states are established. : 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to the Journal of Physical Oceanography |
format |
Text |
author |
Constantinou, Navid C. |
author_facet |
Constantinou, Navid C. |
author_sort |
Constantinou, Navid C. |
title |
A barotropic model of eddy saturation |
title_short |
A barotropic model of eddy saturation |
title_full |
A barotropic model of eddy saturation |
title_fullStr |
A barotropic model of eddy saturation |
title_full_unstemmed |
A barotropic model of eddy saturation |
title_sort |
barotropic model of eddy saturation |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1703.06594 https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.06594 |
geographic |
Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean |
genre |
Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-17-0182.1 |
op_rights |
arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1703.06594 https://doi.org/10.1175/jpo-d-17-0182.1 |
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1766207240229879808 |