Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
This is the second and final volume of a report that describes some of my investigations over the last 35 years or so into
low-frequency ocean current structures, a topic which I will call the World Ocean Circulation (WOC). The material presented
constitutes my final report to the Office of Naval Research, and their support over the years is deeply appreciated. I was also
fortunate to have been partially supported by the National Science Foundation during my career and, for some of the preparation
of this report, by the Clark Foundation. Volume I was focused on the North Atlantic Ocean, after a global scale summary. This
volume (II) will consider first the Pacific and Indian Oceans, concentrating on interbasin circulations, meridional cells, and
mesoscale eddy fields. Then, there is an exceptionaly brief discussion of the Southern Ocean(s) for background only, followed by a
global summary. Lately, I have worked intensely on intergyre and interbasin exchanges, including an inter-comparison of some of
the properties of the eddy field in the World's Oceans (Schmitz, W.J., Jr., Reo. Geophys.,33,151-173,1995; J. Geophys. Res.,
101,16,259-16,271,1996). Volume II contains not only an update of the global picture, but also new representations of the
transport structure of various components of the meridional overturning cells for each ocean. In summary, several similarties as
well as dissimilarities between different oceans relative to both their general circulation and their mesoscale eddy field are shown to
be associated with interbasin exchanges.
This report is meant to be an informal, occasionaly anecdotal, state-of-the-art summary account of the World Ocean
Circulation. Seemingly simple questions about how ocean currents behave, such as where various brands of sea water are coming
from and going to, have been exciting research topics for many years. This report is not remotely about "all" of the WOC, it is
simply a set of comments about what I have looked into during the preparation of this document. I do believe that the results in this
report, although presented in a personal way, are consistent with community wisdom. The document is intended to be readable by
non-specialists who have a basic scientifc/technical background, especially in other oceanographic areas or meteorology or the
geophysical disciplines, not only by specialists in physical oceanography.
Description:
Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research, Grant Nos. NO0014-89-J-I039
and N00014-95-1-0356, and the Clark Foundation.
Keywords:
Global ocean circulation
;
Ocean currents
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Technical Report
Format:
42405470 bytes
Format:
application/pdf
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