Does the wind stress always damp an oceanic eddy?

Abstract

Abstract Up to now, the literature has shown that the relative wind stress does negative work on ocean mesoscale eddies. In other words, the relative wind stress inhibits the development of the eddies. However, based on a newly derived simplified theoretical model, the present study finds that under the action of a steady and uniform wind field, eddies can rapidly obtain kinetic energy from the wind field following several hours of adaption and adjustment, in which the wind stress transitions from doing negative to positive work. The finding is supported by the fact that the relative wind stress work on oceanic eddies over the northeastern tropical Pacific ocean is positive with the nearly constant gap wind. This implies that energy input from the wind is sensitive to eddy velocity structure, and hence, wind stress is not always a killer of eddies.

Keywords

• Ocean mesoscale eddy
• Wind work
• Eddy killer
• Wind stress
• Work done by stress