NOAA

Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory

Skip to: [content] [navigation]
If you are using Navigator 4.x or Internet Explorer 4.x or Omni Web 4.x , this site will not render correctly!

gfdl on-line bibliography > 2004 citations

Wind-driven barotropic gyre 1: Circulation control by eddy vorticity fluxes to an enhanced removal regions

 Fox-Kemper, B., and J. Pedlosky, 2004: Wind-driven barotropic gyre 1: Circulation control by eddy vorticity fluxes to an enhanced removal region. Journal of Marine Research, 62(2), 169-193.
Abstract: It is well known that the barotropic, wind-driven, single-gyre ocean model reaches an inertially-dominated equilibrium with unrealistic circulation strength when the explicit viscosity is reduced to realistically low values. It is shown here that the overall circulation strength can be controlled nonlocally by retaining thin regions of enhanced viscosity parameterizing the effects of increased mixing and topographic interaction near the boundaries. The control is possible even when the inertial boundary layer width is larger than the enhanced viscosity region, as eddy fluxes of vorticity from the interior transport vorticity across the mean streamlines of the inertial boundary current to the frictional region. In relatively inviscid calculations the eddies are the major means of flux across interior mean streamlines.

smaller bigger reset
last modified: June 17 2004.