{"title":"Patterns of kinetic energy conversion in a time-average upper ocean","authors":"Carl Wunsch","doi":"10.1016/j.pocean.2025.103453","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Patterns of the spatial fluxes and conversion of oceanic kinetic energy are explored using a 26-year temporal average of a dynamically consistent ECCO state estimate. Because thermal-wind balance is found to be accurate over much of the ocean domain, and with correspondingly small Rossby numbers, a linear analysis is used. Despite the averaging the abyssal ocean average proves remarkably noisy, and thus the focus is on the upper ocean and using the surface layer to 50 m, and depths of 300, 2000, and 3000 m as representative. Surface patterns to 300 m are broadly consistent with what is expected from wind-forcing via Ekman layers. At 2000 m, north of the equator, the flow of North Atlantic Deep Water is dominated by interior flow, and not by the western boundary current used in some over-simplified descriptions. By 3000 m, fluxes are spatially intricate, and presumed to represent the effects of incompletely resolved topographic features. Deep western boundary currents are prominent in kinetic energy, with the surprising exception of the northern North Atlantic and have a complex structure. The complexity of the oceanic container (topography and lateral boundaries) controls much of the circulation when averaged over decades.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":20620,"journal":{"name":"Progress in Oceanography","volume":"234 ","pages":"Article 103453"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Progress in Oceanography","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079661125000412","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"OCEANOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Patterns of the spatial fluxes and conversion of oceanic kinetic energy are explored using a 26-year temporal average of a dynamically consistent ECCO state estimate. Because thermal-wind balance is found to be accurate over much of the ocean domain, and with correspondingly small Rossby numbers, a linear analysis is used. Despite the averaging the abyssal ocean average proves remarkably noisy, and thus the focus is on the upper ocean and using the surface layer to 50 m, and depths of 300, 2000, and 3000 m as representative. Surface patterns to 300 m are broadly consistent with what is expected from wind-forcing via Ekman layers. At 2000 m, north of the equator, the flow of North Atlantic Deep Water is dominated by interior flow, and not by the western boundary current used in some over-simplified descriptions. By 3000 m, fluxes are spatially intricate, and presumed to represent the effects of incompletely resolved topographic features. Deep western boundary currents are prominent in kinetic energy, with the surprising exception of the northern North Atlantic and have a complex structure. The complexity of the oceanic container (topography and lateral boundaries) controls much of the circulation when averaged over decades.
期刊介绍:
Progress in Oceanography publishes the longer, more comprehensive papers that most oceanographers feel are necessary, on occasion, to do justice to their work. Contributions are generally either a review of an aspect of oceanography or a treatise on an expanding oceanographic subject. The articles cover the entire spectrum of disciplines within the science of oceanography. Occasionally volumes are devoted to collections of papers and conference proceedings of exceptional interest. Essential reading for all oceanographers.