Along-stream variations in the dynamics of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) impact heat and tracer transport, regulate interbasin exchange, and influence closure of the overturning circulation. Topography is primarily responsible for generating deviations from zonal-mean properties, mainly through standing meanders associated with regions of high eddy kinetic energy. Here, an idealized channel model is used to explore the spatial distribution of energy exchange and its relationship to eddy geometry, as characterized by both eddy momentum and eddy buoyancy fluxes. Variations in energy exchange properties occur not only between standing meander and quasi-zonal jet regions, but throughout the meander itself. Both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties, as well as the magnitude of energy exchange terms, undergo abrupt changes along the path of the ACC. These transitions are captured by diagnosing eddy fluxes of energy and by adopting the eddy geometry framework. The latter, typically applied to barotropic stability properties, is applied here in the depth–along-stream plane to include information about both barotropic and baroclinic stability properties of the flow. These simulations reveal that eddy momentum fluxes, and thus barotropic instability, play a leading role in the energy budget within a standing meander. This result suggests that baroclinic instability alone cannot capture the dynamics of ACC standing meanders, a challenge for models where eddy fluxes are parameterized.

Equatorial deep jets (EDJs) are equatorially trapped, stacked, zonal currents that reverse direction every few hundred meters in depth throughout much of the water column. This study evaluates their structure observationally in all three oceans using new high-vertical-resolution Argo float conductivity-temperaturedepth (CTD) instrument profiles from 2010 to 2014 augmented with historical shipboard CTD data from 1972 to 2014 and lower-vertical-resolution Argo float profiles from 2007 to 2014. The vertical strain of density is calculated from the profiles and analyzed in a stretched vertical coordinate system determined from the mean vertical density structure. The power spectra of vertical strain in each basin are analyzed using wavelet decomposition. In the Indian and Pacific Oceans, there are two distinct peaks in the power spectra, one Kelvin wave-like and the other entirely consistent with the dispersion relation of a linear, first meridional mode, equatorial Rossby wave. In the Atlantic Ocean, the first meridional mode Rossby wave signature is very strong and dominates. In all three ocean basins, Rossby wave-like signatures are coherent across the basin width and appear to have wavelengths the scale of the basin width, with periods of about 5 yr in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and about 12 yr in the Pacific Ocean. Their observed meridional scales are about 1.5 times the linear theoretical values. Their phase propagation is downward with time, implying upward energy propagation if linear wave dynamics hold.

The complex export pathways that connect the surface waters of the Weddell Sea with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current influence water mass modification, nutrient fluxes, and ecosystem dynamics. To study this exchange, 40 surface drifters, equipped with temperature sensors, were released into the northwestern Weddell Sea's continental shelf and slope frontal system in late January 2012. Comparison of the drifter trajectories with a similar deployment in early February 2007 provides insight into the interannual variability of the surface circulation in this region. Observed differences in the 2007 and 2012 drifter trajectories are related to a variable surface circulation responding to changes in wind stress curl over the Weddell Gyre. Differences between northwestern Weddell Sea properties in 2007 and 2012 include 1) an enhanced cyclonic wind stress forcing over the Weddell Gyre in 2012; 2) an acceleration of the Antarctic Slope Current (ASC) and an offshore shift of the primary drifter export pathway in 2012; and 3) a strengthening of the Coastal Current (CC) over the continental shelf in 2007. The relationship between wind stress forcing and surface circulation is reproduced over a longer time period in virtual drifter deployments advected by a remotely sensed surface velocity product. The mean offshore position and speed of the drifter trajectories are correlated with the wind stress curl over the Weddell Gyre, although with different temporal lags. The drifter observations are consistent with recent modeling studies suggesting that Weddell Sea boundary current variability can significantly impact the rate and source of exported surface waters to the Scotia Sea, a process that determines regional chlorophyll distributions.