Mechanisms of the southward translation of meddies |
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| Authors: | Jun Takahashi Akira Masuda |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Earth System Science & Technology, Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, 816 Kasuga, Japan;(2) Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, 816 Kasuga, Japan |
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| Abstract: | Meddies are warm and saline anticyclonic eddies found at the mid-depth of the Mediterranean Outflow in the Eastern North Atlantic.
They are observed to move almost southward at average speeds as high as 1.3±0.2 cm s−1. This paper examines a mechanism which accelerates this curious translation to a reasonable speed when combined with nonlinearity
and a suitable vertical eddy structure. This mechanism is thepseudo-topographic β effect due to the westward decrease in the thickness of the mid-layer induced by the surface southward mean current. The
linear dispersion relation including this effect is shown to account for a quarter of the surface southward mean current or
a fifth of the observed southward translation of meddies. Three-layer quasi-geostrophic experiments reveal that the surface
southward mean current certainly enhances the southward translation velocity of meddies to a speed in agreement with observation,
if the meddy has a current structure of plausible intensity and vertical coherence. In the light of the current-induced pseudo-topographic
β effect, previous hypotheses are also re-examined through dynamic arguments together with numerical experiments; they are
suggested to have some difficulty either in dynamics or in correspondence with observation. Thus the nonlinear effect due
to secondary eddies combined with thecurrent-induced pseudo-topographic β effect is the most likely mechanism responsible for the rapid southward translation of meddies among those examined in
the paper. |
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| Keywords: | Translation of meddies current-induced pseudo-topographic β effect nonlinear effect of secondary eddies |
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