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Do eddies ride on R ossby waves?
Author(s) -
Polito Paulo S.,
Sato Olga T.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: oceans
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9291
pISSN - 2169-9275
DOI - 10.1002/2015jc010737
Subject(s) - rossby wave , baroclinity , eddy , geology , vortex , sea surface height , maxima and minima , latitude , anomaly (physics) , geophysics , distortion (music) , physics , geodesy , climatology , meteorology , mathematics , sea surface temperature , mathematical analysis , condensed matter physics , turbulence , amplifier , optoelectronics , cmos
Both vortices and baroclinic Rossby waves show up as westward‐propagating features in the sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) records when displayed in the form of zonal‐temporal or Hovmöller diagrams. A chain of filters was used to separate the SSHA into orthogonal components. Each of the filtered components was then reassembled as a set of maps. In the maps of individual components, we clearly see westward propagating Rossby waves. Our most striking findings are: (i) limited within their critical latitudes, the wave extrema coincide with a significant number of vortices; (ii) eddy‐wave coincidence occurs at a preferred latitude that depends on the wave period; (iii) among the vortices that, at some point of their existence coincide with a wave, a relatively large percentage of them remained their whole lifetime with the wave, and (iv) a mechanism is proposed to explain why eddies tend to remain over the wave extrema (crests and troughs). Our answer to the title question is: yes, they often do.