9/5/2023 0 Comments Darby pixen inglewoodThis prohibited the application of his theory to the western boundary currents, since some form of dissipative effect (bottom Ekman layer) would be later shown to be necessary to predict a closed circulation for an entire ocean basin and to counteract the wind-driven flow. He assumed a geostrophic interior flow, while neglecting any frictional or viscosity effects and presuming that the circulation vanishes at some depth in the ocean. Harald Sverdrup was the first one, preceding Henry Stommel, to attempt to explain the mid-ocean vorticity balance by looking at the relationship between surface wind forcings and the mass transport within the upper ocean layer. The physics of western intensification can be understood through a mechanism that helps maintain the vortex balance along an ocean gyre. Sverdrup balance and physics of western intensification Mathematically elegant figures within models of the distribution of streamlines and height contours in such an ocean if currents uniformly rotate can be found in the paper. Finally, on a rotating sphere - the case where the Coriolis force is latitudinally variant, a distinct tendency for asymmetrical streamlines is found, with an intense clustering along the western coasts. The streamlines exhibit a symmetric behavior in all directions, with the height contours demonstrating a nearly parallel relation to the streamlines, in a homogeneously rotating ocean. Such currents are observed to be much faster, deeper, narrower and warmer than their eastern counterparts.įor a non-rotating state (zero Coriolis parameter) and where that is a constant, ocean circulation has no preference toward intensification/acceleration near the western boundary. In this, Stommel assumed an ocean of constant density and depth D + h, emphasize the role of the variation of the Coriolis parameter with latitude in inciting the strengthening of western boundary currents.
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