We present a model for the interaction between the ocean's wind-driven gyres and the atmosphere. The ocean model is based on the planetary geostrophic equations on a hemisphere. This formulation, which includes the effects of the earth's sphericity, allows the propagation time of Rossby waves in the ocean to be a function of latitude. We explore how this latitudinal dependence affects the spin-up and spin-down time of the wind-driven gyres in the context of a coupled system where the response time of the atmosphere is assumed to be much shorter than that of the ocean. The interaction involves the heat transport by the gyres which modifies the atmosphere's pole to equator temperature gradient. Thermal-wind balance translates any modifications of this temperature gradient into changes in the intensity of the westerlies and ultimately into changes in the surface wind-stress which drives the oceanic gyres.
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12th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics