What is recorded here?
Munk develops a depth-integrated wind-driven ocean-circulation model with lateral eddy viscosity, coupling inherited interior transport balance to asymmetric coastal layers and comparing predicted currents with observations. Wind does not simply push an entire ocean in its own direction. In this steady basin model, the spatial rotation of wind stress supplies the relevant forcing, while the change in planetary rotation with latitude helps concentrate a return current along the western edge. Munk joins the broad interior flow to a lateral-viscous boundary layer and calculates current patterns from observed winds. The calculation explains several patterns and suggests useful scales, but it is deliberately approximate. The effective viscosity is selected using observed current widths, some transports are underpredicted by about a factor of two, and omitted inertia may matter near the inshore edge. The contribution makes earlier interior-balance and western-intensification ideas into a more detailed testable model; it does not establish a complete description of all ocean currents.
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Scientific scope
The model uses a stated wind-driven, idealized basin and lateral-viscosity closure with boundary conditions. Boundary-current structure depends on those approximations. It is not a complete three-dimensional ocean forecast or universal account of turbulent viscosity. Later circulation observations and models receive separate credit.
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People and systems
Walter H. Munk
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English catalogue narrative
Munk: connect basin-wide wind forcing with narrow ocean boundary currents
Munk develops a depth-integrated wind-driven ocean-circulation model with lateral eddy viscosity, coupling inherited interior transport balance to asymmetric coastal layers and comparing predicted currents with observations.
Wind does not simply push an entire ocean in its own direction. In this steady basin model, the spatial rotation of wind stress supplies the relevant forcing, while the change in planetary rotation with latitude helps concentrate a return current along the western edge. Munk joins the broad interior flow to a lateral-viscous boundary layer and calculates current patterns from observed winds. The calculation explains several patterns and suggests useful scales, but it is deliberately approximate. The effective viscosity is selected using observed current widths, some transports are underpredicted by about a factor of two, and omitted inertia may matter near the inshore edge. The contribution makes earlier interior-balance and western-intensification ideas into a more detailed testable model; it does not establish a complete description of all ocean currents.
Scientific scope
The model uses a stated wind-driven, idealized basin and lateral-viscosity closure with boundary conditions. Boundary-current structure depends on those approximations. It is not a complete three-dimensional ocean forecast or universal account of turbulent viscosity. Later circulation observations and models receive separate credit.
People and systems
Walter H. Munk