A Linear Stochastic Field Model of Midlatitude Mesoscale Variability

A semiempirical model of midlatitude sea surface height (SSH) variability is formulated and tested against two decades of weekly global fields of merged altimeter data. The model is constrained to match approximately the observed SSH wavenumber power spectrum, but it predicts the spatiotemporal SSH field structure as a propagating, damped, linear response to a stochastic forcing field. An objective, coherent-eddy identification and tracking...