Speaker: Joern Callies

Joern will be leading a discussion on Renault et al, 2016: "Control and Stabilization of the Gulf Stream by Oceanic Current Interaction with the Atmosphere”. Joern’s thoughts on the paper are:

"Western boundary currents transport vast amounts of heat poleward, providing considerable warming to the atmosphere along their paths. Where these currents separate from the coast and what paths they take, however, is controlled by dynamics we do not fully understand. Moreover, the accurate representation of these currents in numerical models has been notoriously difficult. It is generally thought that models require a resolution of ~10 km or finer, but even then the current paths are sensitive to details of subgrid-scale closures and tend to meander too much. 

The study by Renault et al. breaks from this focus on details of numerical implementation and instead points out a physical mechanism that may have been overlooked in the discussion of boundary current dynamics. The authors propose that a modification of the wind stress by surface currents feeds back on the boundary currents and straightens their paths."