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ZHANG Qinghua,QU Yuanyuan,CHEN Shuiming. 2008. A modification to the Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, (3):4-10
A modification to the Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory
A modification to the Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory
Received:August 15, 2007  Revised:March 01, 2008
DOI:
Key words:Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory  eastern boundary current  western boundary current  effective wind stress
中文关键词:  Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory  eastern boundary current  western boundary current  effective wind stress
基金项目:The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No.40576020.
Author NameAffiliationE-mail
ZHANG Qinghua Key Laboratory of Marine Science and Numerical Modeling of State Oceanic Administration, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China  
QU Yuanyuan Key Laboratory of Marine Science and Numerical Modeling of State Oceanic Administration, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China quyy@fio.org.cn 
CHEN Shuiming Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu HI 96822, USA  
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Abstract:
      In order to fulfill the no-slip condition at the western and eastern boundaries of the ocean basin, introduced "effective wind stress", which has much larger spatial variations towards the boundaries than in the ocean interior.The effective wind stress can thus be decomposed into spatially slow-varying and fast varying components.Careful scale analysis on the classical Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory, which consists of the interior Sverdrup flow and the western boundary current but of no eastern boundary current, shows that the wind stress curl appearing in the Sverdrup equation must have negligible spatial variations.In the present model the spatially slow-varying component of the wind stress appears in the Sverdrup equation, and the spatially fast-varying component becomes the forcing term of the boundary equations.As a result, in addition to the classical Munk solution the present model has an extra term at the western boundary which (Northern Hemisphere) increases the northward transport as well as the southward return transport, and has a term at the eastern boundary corresponding to the eastern boundary current.
中文摘要:
      In order to fulfill the no-slip condition at the western and eastern boundaries of the ocean basin, introduced "effective wind stress", which has much larger spatial variations towards the boundaries than in the ocean interior.The effective wind stress can thus be decomposed into spatially slow-varying and fast varying components.Careful scale analysis on the classical Munk wind-driven ocean circulation theory, which consists of the interior Sverdrup flow and the western boundary current but of no eastern boundary current, shows that the wind stress curl appearing in the Sverdrup equation must have negligible spatial variations.In the present model the spatially slow-varying component of the wind stress appears in the Sverdrup equation, and the spatially fast-varying component becomes the forcing term of the boundary equations.As a result, in addition to the classical Munk solution the present model has an extra term at the western boundary which (Northern Hemisphere) increases the northward transport as well as the southward return transport, and has a term at the eastern boundary corresponding to the eastern boundary current.
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