A two‐dimensional model for eddy saturation and frictional control in the Southern Ocean

Maddison, J. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5742-4363; Marshall, D. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5199-6579; Mak, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5862-6469; Maurer‐Song, K.. 2025 A two‐dimensional model for eddy saturation and frictional control in the Southern Ocean. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 17 (4). 10.1029/2024MS004682

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Text © 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. J Adv Model Earth Syst - 2025 - Maddison - A Two‐Dimensional Model for Eddy Saturation and Frictional Control in the.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract/Summary

The reduced sensitivity of mean Southern Ocean zonal transport with respect to surface wind stress magnitude changes, known as eddy saturation, is studied in an idealized analytical model. The model is based on the assumption of a balance between surface wind stress forcing and bottom dissipation in the planetary geostrophic limit, coupled to the GEOMETRIC form of the Gent–McWilliams eddy parameterization. The assumption of a linear stratification, together with an equation for the parameterized domain integrated total eddy energy, enables the formulation of a two component dynamical system, which reduces to the non-linear oscillator of Ambaum and Novak (2014, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.2352) in a Hamiltonian limit. The model suggests an intrinsic oscillatory time scale for the Southern Ocean, associated with a combination of mean shear erosion by eddies and eddy energy generation by the mean shear. For Southern Ocean parameters the model suggests that perturbing the system via stochastic wind forcing may lead to relatively large excursions in eddy energy.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1029/2024MS004682
ISSN:	1942-2466
Additional Keywords:	Southern Ocean, eddy saturation, frictional control, mesoscale eddy parameterization
Date made live:	04 Jun 2025 19:11 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/539522

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