Global Summaries and Intercomparisons: Flow Statistics from Long-Term Current Meter Moorings

Abstract

Despite its title, this chapter does not aim to repeat the detailed local accounts of eddy distributions and dynamics already provided by the various regional authors. These authors know their own areas and data sources intimately, will have used a variety of direct and indirect evidence to assess eddy activity in their regions and in any event the regional chapters were not available at the time of writing. By contrast, this chapter examines only one particular type of data - long-term current meter records - in order to provide a summary of kinetic energy statistics for as much of the world ocean as possible in the hope that meaningful regional characteristics will emerge.