Fig. 5: Global distributions of meridional eddy heat flux induced by eddies with different directions.
From: Doubling of surface oceanic meridional heat transport by non-symmetry of mesoscale eddies
a–d Global distributions of averaged meridional heat flux induced by four types of eddies with different directions. a Meridional, b zonal, c Northeast-Southwest (NESW) and d Northwest-Southeast (NWSE), which are constructed by averaging with a \(2^\circ \times 2^\circ\) moving window. Yellow boxes in (a) mark the regions with strong eddy heat fluxes. Red numbers above each subfigure are the globally averaged eddy-induced heat flux for each type of directed eddies, which are computed after multiplying the heat flux in the southern hemisphere with −1. The data is removed in the area near the equator where the geostrophic balance does not hold. e Averaged meridional heat fluxes in the regions indicated within the yellow boxes in a. Red bars indicate the values of meridional directed eddies and blue bars for zonal ones. Numbers over the bars represent the average meridional heat fluxes in the boxes with unit 10−3 m s−1 °C. f Zonally averaged meridional heat fluxes induced by eddies with different directions. The sum of eddies’ zonally integrated meridional heat fluxes is represented by the black curve. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
