A study of the interaction between wind-driven gyres and zonal jets

Interaction between wind-driven gyres and zonal jets in a closed mid-latitude basin is studied numerically using a high resolution barotropic beta-plane model. A small scale stochastic forcing drives the jets and a basin scale forcing drives the gyres. We focus on spectral transfer properties and how these vary between the gyre-only, jet-only and mixed forcing cases. Our findings suggest, for example, that interactions with the jets lead to a decrease in the rate at which the (basin scale) wind energy input is cascaded forward to the energy-containing scales (where it is removed by the Rayleigh drag term).