Read Full Article (file size: 656728 bytes)    Cited by

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 33, L10601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025865, 2006

On zonal jets in oceans

Balasubramanya T. Nadiga

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

Abstract

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.

Index Terms: 4415 Nonlinear Geophysics: Cascades; 4490 Nonlinear Geophysics: Turbulence (3379, 4568, 7863); 4475 Nonlinear Geophysics: Scaling: spatial and temporal (1872, 3270, 4277); 4528 Oceanography: Physical: Fronts and jets; 4532 Oceanography: Physical: General circulation (1218, 1222).

Read Full Article (file size: 656728 bytes)    Cited by

Citation: Nadiga, B. T. (2006), On zonal jets in oceans, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L10601, doi:10.1029/2006GL025865.

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. Published in 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.