We show how a barotropic shallow water model can be used to decompose the mean barotropic transport from a high‐resolution ocean model based on the vertically averaged momentum equations. We apply the method to a high‐resolution model of the North Atlantic for which the local vorticity budget is both noisy and dominated by small spatial scales. The shallow water model acts as an effective filter and clearly reveals the transport driven by each term. The potential energy (joint effect of baroclinicity and bottom relief) term is the most important for driving transport, including in the northwest corner, while mean flow advection is important for driving transport along f/H contours around the Labrador Sea continental slope. Both the eddy momentum flux and the mean flow advection terms drive significant transport along the pathway of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current.

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A method using a linear shallow water model is presented for decomposing the temporal variability of the barotropic stream function in a high-resolution ocean model. The method is based on the vertically averaged momentum equations and is applied to the time series of annual mean stream function from the model configuration VIKING20 for the northern North Atlantic. An important result is the role played by the nonlinear advection terms in VIKING20 for driving transport. The method is illustrated by examining how the Gulf Stream transport in the recirculation region responds to the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). While no statistically significant response is found in the year overlapping with the winter NAO index, there is a tendency for the Gulf Stream transport to increase as the NAO becomes more positive. This becomes significant in lead years 1 and 2 when the mean flow advection and eddy momentum flux contributions, associated with nonlinear momentum advection, dominate. Only after 2 years, does the potential energy term, associated with the density field, start to play a role and it is only after 5 years that the transport dependence on the NAO ceases to be significant. It is also shown that the potential energy contribution to the transport stream function has significant memory of up to 5 years in the Labrador and Irminger Seas. However, it is only around the northern rim of these seas that VIKING20 and the transport reconstruction exhibit similar memory. This is due to masking by the mean flow advection and eddy momentum flux contributions. Plain Language Summary The Gulf Stream plays an important role in the climate system, redistributing heat and other tracers, including carbon, between the tropics and higher latitudes. How the transport of the Gulf Stream varies, in particular in response to forcing from the atmosphere, is still not fully understood. Here we use a novel decomposition technique to identify the different contributions to the transport variability in a high-resolution model configuration for the northern North Atlantic. We find an important role for the nonlinear terms in the momentum balance. Transport variations associated with these terms are often not taken account of but can sometimes obscure signals that are present in the density field.

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