Numerical simulation of the Gulf Stream and Mid-Ocean eddies

Oceanographic field measurements have revealed intense, transient mesoscale motions in many parts of the world ocean. The circulation of the western North Atlantic, considered in the present study as a rectangular basin, is simulated with a primitive equation model that has five levels and a horizontal grid size of 37 km. The model ocean is driven by a 2.5 gyre pattern of steady zonal wind stress and by a Newtonian-type surface heating. Two cases are considered: the first uses a Laplacian formulation for the subgrid-scale lateral diffusions of heat and momentum; the second uses a highly scale-selective biharmonic formulation for these diffusions. An analysis of the heat transport, in the biharmonic experiment, shows that the horizontal transport of heat by eddies is much larger than the subgrid-scale horizontal heat diffusion. In the Gulf Stream region, the eddy heat transport is comparable to the effect of a lateral diffusion coefficient of 10 to the 7th sq cm/s.