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Observational evidence of alternating zonal jets in the world ocean
Author(s) -
Maximenko Nikolai A.,
Bang Bohyun,
Sasaki Hideharu
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2005gl022728
Subject(s) - geostrophic wind , geology , mesoscale meteorology , eddy , vorticity , altimeter , baroclinity , zonal and meridional , climatology , middle latitudes , potential vorticity , geophysics , sea surface height , geodesy , physics , meteorology , vortex , turbulence
Multiple zonal jets with the east‐west velocity direction alternating with latitude are discovered in satellite altimetry data. The time‐varying jets are shown to populate every part of the world ocean and its marginal seas and are best seen in the anomaly of geostrophic vorticity. At midlatitudes the jets have a meridional wavelength of about 300 kms with r.m.s. sea level, velocity and vorticity values of 2.4 cm, 6.9 cm/s and 1.5 · 10 −6 s −1 , correspondingly. Realistic data from the high‐resolution OGCM run on the Earth Simulator are used to justify high vertical coherence of the jets structure and relevance of the jets to an evolving mesoscale eddy field. Strong coupling between the jets and mesoscale eddies is hypothesized.