Recirculation through western boundary currents varies nonlinearly with the ocean basin's aspect ratio

Abstract

Recirculation gyres adjacent to western boundary currents (WBCs) in the ocean enhance the poleward transport of these currents. While it is well-established that the WBC in a barotropic ocean strengthens with increase in basin's aspect ratio (the meridional-to-zonal extent ratio), how intensity of the recirculation through the western boundary layer varies with this parameter remains unexplored. I address this using the non-dimensional form of the nonlinear, wind-driven Stommel–Munk model of westward intensification that comprises three parameters—the aspect ratio (δ), the damping coefficient (ϵ), and the β-Rossby number (Rβ). Here, ϵ is set by the ratio of Rayleigh friction coefficient (or eddy viscosity) to the meridional gradient of the Coriolis frequency and the basin's zonal dimension, while Rβ is proportional to wind stress amplitude and quantifies the strength of nonlinearity. In the weak-to-moderate nonlinearity limit (Rβ<∼ϵ), perturbation analysis reveals that recirculation varies concavely with aspect ratio, suggesting existence of an optimal aspect ratio (δopt) for which the recirculation is maximum and for typical values of ϵ (10−3−10−2), δopt follows the power-law relation δopt=4.3ϵ. Numerical simulations further validate the existence of δopt. For large ϵ (>5×10−3), the power-law predicts δopt for the numerical solutions rather accurately, but does not hold for smaller ϵ (2×10−3) due to increased importance of nonlinear terms. Nevertheless, the nonlinear variation in recirculation through the western boundary layer with aspect ratio is observed for all ϵ values and may contribute to the heterogeneous increase in the WBC's transport across different ocean basins in a warming climate.