Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
Author Posting. © Sears Foundation for Marine Research, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of Sears Foundation for Marine Research for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Marine Research 63 (2005): 497-527, doi:10.1357/0022240054307894.
Description:
Nonlinear rectification of the ocean circulation driven by random forcing, which simulates the effect of unresolved eddies, is studied in an idealized closed basin. The results are based on the analysis of randomly forced solutions and linear eigenmodes. Depending on the forcing strength, two rectification regimes are found: zonal jets and isolated gyres. It is shown that both regimes are due to nonlinear interactions of resonant basin modes. In the zonal-jet regime, these interactions involve complex interplay between resonant baroclinic modes and some secondary modes. Both Rhines' scaling for zonal jets and prediction of gyres based on the maximum entropy argument are not confirmed.
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
Format:
3580492 bytes
Format:
application/pdf
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