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On zonal jets in oceans
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA
We find that in parameter regimes relevant to the recently observed alternating zonal jets in oceans, the formation of these jets can be explained as due to an arrest of the turbulent inverse-cascade of energy by free Rossby waves (as opposed to Rossby basin modes) and a subsequent redirection of that energy into zonal modes. This mechanism, originally studied in the context of alternating jets in Jovian atmospheres and two dimensional turbulence in zonally-periodic configurations survives in spite of the presence of the meridional boundaries in the oceanic context.
Received 26 January 2006; accepted 12 April 2006; published 18 May 2006.
Citation: (2006), On zonal jets in oceans, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L10601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025865.
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