Role of gyration in the oceanic general circulation : Atlantic Ocean

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 113 (2008): C03014, doi:10.1029/2007JC004134.Wind-driven gyres transport volume and heat in the meridional direction, which is an important component of the climate system. The contribution of wind-driven gyres to both poleward volume and heat fluxes can be clearly identified from numerical models by a simple diagnostic tool; thus the central location, strength, and dynamical roles of wind-driven circulation in the climatological mean state and decadal variability of the oceanic circulation can be examined in detail. This diagnostic tool was applied to the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation data generated from a numerical model, with data assimilation. Our analysis indicates the important contribution due to wind-driven gyres and the strong decadal variability in the volume flux, heat flux, and central location of the wind-driven gyres in the Atlantic Ocean.J.H. and H.W. were jointly supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (40406004, 40531006) and by the National Hi-Tech Project (‘‘863’’ program) of China under contract 2006AA09Z158. R.X.H. was supported by the Van Alan Clark Chair of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution