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Henry Stommel

person · earth

American oceanographer whose 1948 paper "The westward intensification of wind-driven ocean currents" explained why the fast currents are always on the western side of an ocean basin. Working with a rectangular, flat-bottomed model ocean, he showed that with a constant Coriolis parameter the circulation is symmetric, and that allowing it to vary with latitude crowds the streamlines against the western boundary. It is one of the shortest routes in science from an idealised model to a feature anyone can see on a satellite image.

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Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 15 blocks · 1 evidence · 10 related

  1. Story
  2. American oceanographer whose 1948 paper "The westward intensification of wind-driven ocean currents" explained why the fast currents are always on the western side of an ocean basin. Working with a rectangular, flat-bottomed model ocean, he showed that with a constant Coriolis parameter the circulation is symmetric, and that allowing it to vary with latitude crowds the streamlines against the western boundary. It is one of the shortest routes in science from an idealised model to a feature anyone can see on a satellite image.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Western Intensification of Wind-Driven Gyres
  5. Henry Stommel
  6. Connections
  7. Western Intensification of Wind-Driven Gyres
  8. Stommel explains why the fast currents are on the west
  9. North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre
  10. Gulf Stream
  11. Kuroshio
  12. Henry Stommel
  13. Stommel explains why the fast currents are on the west
  14. Evidence
  15. Variation of the Coriolis parameter with latitude — the beta effect — crowds the return flow of a wind-driven gyre into a narrow, intense western boundary current; with a constant Coriolis parameter the circulation is symmetric. Located by citation and described from teaching notes and commemorative accounts; the 1948 paper was not fetched.
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/atlas?object=PERSON_HENRY_STOMMEL&experience=PERSON_HENRY_STOMMEL