Mediterranean (water)
Eddy. A large
eddy originating from the
outflow
of the
Mediterranean Sea which was found near the
Bahamas
1000m below the ocean surface in 1976. Subsequently, meddies were found to be common in the eastern
Atlantic (see below).
Here are some questions:
For experts in hydrodynamics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics: what keeps this dissipative structure going?
For meteorologists and planetologists: is this a useful analogy for the Great Red Spot on Jupiter?
Sources:
Mark D. Prater and H. Thomas Rossby
(both at School of Oceanography and Applied Physics Laboratory,
University of Washington,
Seattle, WA 98105) , "The Double Irony of the Meddy"
The double irony lies in the fact that the
original Bahamas meddy led to the
discovery that meddies are in fact quite
common in the eastern Atlantic. But as we
learned more about them, we began to
harbor doubts that the Bahamas meddy
could have originated there. This doubt led
us to hypothesize instead that the meddy
originated in the northwestern part of the
North Atlantic and traveled south and west
along the North American continent for
4,000km.
Mark D. Prater and Thomas B. Sanford, "A Meddy off Cape St. Vincent"
Claudia Cenedese (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) , "Meddy Collision With Topography",
ORAL session, Monday morning, November 22 (no year given!)
Shipboard observations indicated that, in the North Atlantic, Meddies propagate southwestward and generally interact with
major seamounts. The result is either major disruption of the Meddies (strong interaction) or a change in their propagation
direction (weak interaction).
Mark D. Prater and Thomas B. Sanford, "Potential Vorticity Connection between a
Gulf of Cadiz Meddy and the Mediterranean Outflow"
Anticyclonic eddies of Mediterranean water found in the North Atlantic (Meddies) contain anomalously low values of Ertel's potential vorticity.
I found all the above references online, but none of them gives a date of publication.
(I learned this word from my Page-A-Day calendar).