Title
Contrasting Westward and Eastward Propagating Mesoscale Eddies in the Global Ocean
Abstract
Although the zonal propagation of mesoscale eddies is intrinsically westward in oceans worldwide, eddies occasionally propagate eastward. Westward propagating eddies (WPEs) and eastward propagating eddies (EPEs) have distinctively different characteristics. In this article, the propagation features of WPEs and EPEs were studied using a combination of current, wind, and topographical data. We found that, except for in the North Atlantic, the energetic areas for WPEs and EPEs did not overlap. Furthermore, the propagation channels of WPEs and EPEs were located at different depths. The magnitude of change in current and wind stress simultaneously affected both the spread direction and velocity of eddies. The average translation speeds of eddies increased as subsurface current velocity increased, regardless of the angle between the direction of eddy propagation and flow. Compared with WPEs, increases in wind stress had little effect on the propagation speeds of EPEs. The directions of EPEs were more sensitive to changes in flow and wind speed. Even small changes in bathymetry slowed the propagation speeds of eddies. This topographical inhibition was biggest when the topographic gradients were around 0.02 and 0.04 for WPEs and EPEs, respectively. The propagation directions of EPEs were also sensitive to the surrounding terrain and tended to move along seamounts and ridges. These findings may refine eddy predictions and aid eddy observations in the future.
Year
DOI
Venue
2022
10.1109/TGRS.2021.3095936
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Oceans, Wind stress, Wind energy generation, Surface topography, Sea surface, Oceanography, Wind speed, Current, nonlinear mesoscale eddies, propagating features, topography, wind
Journal
60
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0196-2892
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Lin Peng100.34
Ge Chen23712.78
Lei Guan323.79
Fenglin Tian432.24