Equatorward translation of the Vitoria Eddy in a numerical simulation

Abstract

The Vitoria Eddy is a cyclonic vortex in the Brazil Current immediately to the South of the Vitoria-Trindade Ridge. Schmid et al. (1995) observed one such eddy that initially translated to the northeast, for about 17 days, and then moved back to the south. In this letter we report results of an eddy-resolving OGCM in which cyclonic eddies are formed in the same region. Although similar in structure to the observed feature, in our simulations the eddies present two different modes of translation. In one case, the eddy moves initially to the northeast, then remains stationary for a while, and finally moves back to the south. In the other, the eddy does not stop. It continues moving northward, crossing the Vitoria-Trindade chain and the Abrolhos Bank. In spite of not being impossible, to our knowledge this second behavior has never been reported. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.