A fundamental process by which ocean currents lose the energy acquired from the wind will be explored through analyses of output from state-of-the-art ocean general circulation models. The main goal is to determine the characteristics of radiation of barotropic energy away from the Gulf Stream system. The results will then be used to guide the design of a field program to observe the phenomenon. It is not a priori certain that the modern ocean general circulation models are properly simulating the physics of mesoscale barotropic variability in the presence of strong currents (like the Gulf Stream) and realistic topography. The end result of this work, which will include model comparisons with real ocean data, might only reveal the inadequacies of the models, while providing little insight into the nature of barotropic radiation in the real ocean. At least, information about the ability (or lack thereof) of modern models to simulate the ocean's barotropic variability should lead to model improvements.
Broader Impacts. The results from this work will provide information on a phenomenon that is important to the dynamics of ocean currents but is difficult to isolate. Insofar as this information leads to improvements of models of the ocean's general circulation, one can expect subsequent improvements in studies of phenomena that rely on such models, e.g., studies of climate variability, ecosystem evolution, and CO2 sequestration, to name just a few broader applications.
