![]() The physics of western intensification can be understood through a mechanism that helps maintain the vortex balance along an ocean gyre. Sverdrup balance and physics of western intensification ![]() Mathematically elegant figures within models of the distribution of streamlines and height contours in such an ocean if currents uniformly rotate can be found in the paper. Finally, on a rotating sphere - the case where the Coriolis force is latitudinally variant, a distinct tendency for asymmetrical streamlines is found, with an intense clustering along the western coasts. The streamlines exhibit a symmetric behavior in all directions, with the height contours demonstrating a nearly parallel relation to the streamlines, in a homogeneously rotating ocean. ![]() Such currents are observed to be much faster, deeper, narrower and warmer than their eastern counterparts.įor a non-rotating state (zero Coriolis parameter) and where that is a constant, ocean circulation has no preference toward intensification/acceleration near the western boundary. In this, Stommel assumed an ocean of constant density and depth D + h, emphasize the role of the variation of the Coriolis parameter with latitude in inciting the strengthening of western boundary currents.
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