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Temperature and salinity fields in the ocean evolve over time as a result of tracer flux divergences. The velocities and tracer distributions which determine these flux divergences represent a broad spectrum of wavenumbers, but only low wavenumbers are easily resolved in coarse resolution primitive equation climate models of the ocean. Similarly, infrequently sampled ocean observations (such as the ALACE Floats) measure only averaged, large-scale effects. In order to better understand how high wavenumber eddies may drive the ocean, we have run a primitive equation numerical code, the Modular Ocean Model (MOM), at fine resolution and have examined the influence of eddy fluxes on the zonally averaged flow. The results indicate that eddy flux divergences due to deviations from the zonal mean are comparable in magnitude to the flux divergences due to zonally averaged velocities. The eddy flux divergences do not appear to be easily parameterized either by Fickian diffusion or by a more recent scheme proposed by Gent and McWilliams (1990).
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