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The circumpolar transport of a wind-driven quasigeostrophic Antarctic Circumpolar Current is considered. Simple theory suggests transport in a strongly forced regime-the focus of this study-is largely determined by a partitioning of the southward Sverdrup flux into Drake Passage latitudes: some streamlines feed a 'basin contribution' to the circumpolar transport and others feed a large-scale recirculation gyre. Simulations assuming an idealized Scotia Ridge topography are considered to test for sensitivity to resolution. Considerable sensitivity to both vertical and horizontal resolution is found, and associated with this is a tight stationary eddy trapped on the western flank of the ridge. That is, this eddy is sensitive to resolution and exerts an influence that acts to reduce the circumpolar transport. Simulations using the Scotia Ridge-like topography are also compared to others using more realistic topography. In the idealized (ridge) topography experiments, there is only a single ridge against which topographic form drag can act to remove eastward momentum from the system; in the complex topography experiments, there are many. It is found that the experiments assuming realistic topography do not develop an analog to the single topographically trapped eddy prevalent in the Scotia Ridge topography simulations. Additionally, circumpolar transport in these simulations agrees better with the theory. Whether this agreement is simply fortuitous, however, is unclear. To address this, a series of simulations assumes topography that varies smoothly between the idealized ridge and realistic configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eddy-permitting simulations of a wind-driven quasigeostrophic model in an idealized Southern Ocean setting are used to attempt to describe what sets the wind-driven circumpolar transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). For weak forcing, the transport is well described as a linear sum of channel and basin components. The authors' main focus is on stronger forcing. In this regime, an eddy-driven recirculation appears in the abyssal layer, and all time-mean circumpolar streamlines are found to stem from a Sverdrup-like interior. The Sverdrup flux into Drake Passage latitudes can then be thought of as the sum of one part that feeds the circumpolar current and another that is associated with the recirculation. The relative fractions of this partitioning depend on the bottom drag, the midchannel wind stress, and the wind stress curl. Increasing the strength of the bottom drag reduces the recirculation and increases circumpolar transport. Increasing a zero-curl eastward wind stress reduces the upper-layer expression of the recirculation and increases the transport. Increasing the curl-containing portion of the forcing (while holding the midchannel stress constant) increases the recirculation and decreases the transport. The weakly forced regime is also considered, as are the relative roles of large and small-scale eddies in transporting momentum vertically through the water column in the Drake Passage latitude band. It is found that the vertical momentum flux associated with transient structures can be used to distinguish between different regimes: these structures transmit momentum upward when the dynamics is dominated by the large-scale recirculation gyre and downward when it is not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is pointed out that accounting for an ocean surface velocity dependence in the wind stress τ can lead to a significant reduction in the rate at which winds input mechanical energy to the geostrophic circulation. Specifically, the wind stress is taken to be a quadratic function of Ua - uo, where Ua and uo are the 10-m wind and ocean surface velocity, respectively. Because |Ua| is typically large relative to |uo|, accounting for a uo dependence leads only to relatively small changes in τ. The change to the basin-averaged wind power source, however, is considerably larger. Scaling arguments and quasigeostrophic simulations in a basin setting are presented. They suggest that the power source (or rate of energy input) is reduced by roughly 20%–35%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Global vorticity budgets in C-grid shallow water (SW) and quasi-geostrophic (QG) models of wind-driven ocean circulation with free-slip boundary conditions are considered. For both models, it is pointed out that the discretized vorticity equation is defined only over a subdomain that excludes boundary grid nodes. At finite resolution, this implies an advective flux of vorticity across the perimeter of the discretized vorticity domain. For rectangular basins where grid axes are aligned with the basin walls, this flux tends to zero as resolution is increased. We also consider the case in which the grid is rotated with respect to the basin, so that a step-like coastline results. Increased resolution then leads to more steps and, because the advective flux of vorticity out of the domain is particularly large at steps, it is no longer obvious that increased resolution should reduce the advective flux. Results are found to be sensitive to numerical details. In particular, we consider different formulations for the non-linear terms (for both the SW and QG models) and two formulations of the viscous stress tensor for the SW model [the conventional five-point Laplacian and the δ–ζ stress tensor suggested by Madec et al. (J. Phys. Oceanogr . 21 , 1349–1371)]. For the SW model, the overall circulation and the behavior of the flux term are dependent on both the formulation of the viscous stress tensor and the non-linear terms. The best combination is found to be the δ–ζ tensor with an enstrophy-preserving advection scheme. With this combination, the circulation of the non-rotated basin is recovered in rotated basins and the advective flux tends to converge towards zero with increasing resolution. The poorest combination is the δ–ζ tensor with the conventional advective scheme. In this case, the advective flux term diverges with increasing resolution for some rotation angles and the model crashes for... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]